Washington, DC, to Terceira, Azores

Dawn with a statue of Vasco da Gama at the harbor front.  The Azores were already being settled years before Columbus discovered America.

Our son, daughter-in-law, and their two children make a cute family and are very integrated into life in DC.  However, it is not a city we enjoy, and our accommodations this trip were horrible.  The hotel we had stayed in last trip had doubled their prices, and this B&B had a great location, but we discovered it was lacking in every detail.  I sent a message to the booking agency to say that the favorable recommendations for this place must be fake.

After taking the Metro to Reagan National, we had sequential flights to Boston, San Miguel Island; across four time zones and finally arriving at Terceira Island in the Azores the next day.  We had such beautiful weather when we visited last November, but the forecast was for mainly clouds and light rain during this visit.  You can see from the photos that the weather was decent; only one day with rain.  Is this why the Azores aren't higher on tourism lists?

Looking down on Praia da Vitoria from Serra do Cume.  The airport is near here, and our hotel was on the beach at Praia da Vitoria.  Notice the small, lush, well-defined fields.

We picked up our rental car, Citroen C3, and headed for our hotel, dead tired, only to discover that we had no directions to the hotel: no GPS, no map detail, and no phone service.  Fortunately, we doubled back and got help from the nice lady at the tourism booth.  At times like this, it is easy to understand why so many people take organized tours or cruises.  But our hotel is wonderful; right on the oceanfront with a nice walking path along the shore.

While driving in the central part of the island, we had to stop for a goat herd crossing the road.  The goats all climbed over the pasture gate to get out on the road. As you can see, the area is a mixture of forest and fields.

Tonight, while having dinner at an intimate seafood restaurant at the harbor, Dawn remarked how amazing it is to be here at Praia da Vitoria on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic when only a few days ago we were in Colorado.  I love it; being able to exert control over one's life and go from dream to plan to actual experience. Legend has it that the Azores are the mountain peaks of the lost continent of Atlantis.

Hiking through the thick forest after crossing open fields.  We also found places where sufuric steam was still belching out of cracks in the rock.

(next day) The weather is perfect!  And our island is perfect.  So clean, neat, self- sufficient, uncrowded, with helpful people.  Volcanic heights, forested slopes, and lush coastal fields where a wide variety of crops prosper.  Few tourists (mainly European); narrow but uncrowded roads.  We drove to the top of the highest peak, Serra Santa Barbara, today, and only two other couples were there enjoying the sights.  We could see the islands of Sao Jorge, Pico, and Graciosa on the horizon.  The volcanic peak on Pico is about 8000' high; the highest point in all of Portugal.  The entire group of nine islands is spread over almost 400 miles.

 Is that ocean blue enough for you?  As a volcanic island, there are few sandy beaches.  This is the NW shore.

The coast near Raminho; neat fields and a small village.

This flat area of fields (SE part of island) is the center of an ancient caldera about four miles across.  If you click to enlarge this picture, you can see the islands of Sao Jorge, and Pico on the horizon.

Since arriving in the Azores, we made a call to T-Mobile (my new cell phone provider) to activate an international plan.  T-Mobile is a subsidiary of DeutscheTelecom; being Europe-based, it has a reputation for good European service.  So far we are finding that this is true.  In our trips to Europe (this is trip #7), we have increasingly been expected to provide telephone connections to our hotel, airline, and shuttle services.  In the Azores, major roads are easy to follow, but in the towns and villages the roads are like spaghetti, wound together in a convoluted pattern, to where GPS is valuable.  Thus, that cell phone service is a great help.

We went to an excellent restaurant in San Martins last night which would have been hard to find without GPS aid.  Today,we explored Angra do Heroismo, the largest city on Terceira.  Finding our way to the peak of a volcanic cone located on a peninsula overlooking the city, Monte Brasil, was greatly aided by GPS.

Angra do Heroisma is located on the south coast.  The entire island population is about 56,000.  Plenty of narrow streets in the old city.  This photo was taken from the peninsula of Monte Brasil.  We had lunch at the yacht harbor.

Foreground is the city; background is Castelo de Sao Filipe at the foot of Monte Brasil.  The Castelo is still an active military installation.

 Tomorrow, we travel to Flores Island.  It is perhaps the most remote island, located an hour west of here by air.  I hope the weather cooperates while there.