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| The Azores are way out in the Atlantic Ocean |
This year they had previously planned to spend 2 weeks in the Azores on 2 different islands and during discussions with them a little awhile back, they asked about possibly joining them on their next holiday trip.
Didn’t take long to agree to the Azores without really knowing where it was, but we would only be staying 8 days with them.
Some fun facts about the Azores:
- There are 9 islands, the biggest being São Miguel Island
- The islands were formed by volcanoes and therefore are quite hilly
- They are ‘owned’ by Portugal and the population speak Portuguese
- There are ~240k inhabitants on the islands
- The population are a mix of European and historical migrant descent
After a 3 hour flight from London we landed into Ponta Delgada, the largest city in the Azores, and were picked up by the car hire company and soon were on our way in a van to our accomodation about 30 mins east in Agua d’Alto.
The person who picked us up was a local and shared a few tips with us including, “don’t pay any attention to the weather forecasts”. “The weather changes quickly so instead, view the live cameras scattered around the island of São Miguel to see what’s really going on”.
Other tips included trying the islands beef and cheese because there are lots of cattle on the island and the seafood was very fresh and good.
Jarad and Rachel were additionally pleased we were with them because they wanted to go scuba diving during 2 of the 8 days, which meant we would be looking after 3 very lively grandkids.
So during the 8 days, thanks to the ‘queen’ of inventory planning, Rachel, we believe we covered the island of São Miguel pretty well and we also quickly learned there is actually quite a lot to see.
Am not going to explain what we did day by day, rather describe the highlights of our time in the Azores
Below is the usual route map of where we went during the 8 days.
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| Our route throughout São Miguel |
On the map the cyan colour covers where we went whale watching on high speed powerboats for nearly 3 hours, including the opportunity for us to be drenched by sea spray.
During the safety and other briefings before departing, they played a video in the link below called ‘I am the Ocean’ to reinforce how important the ocean is to us all!
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| The high speed boats we used to go searching for whales and other wildlife off the island |
There are spotters located high on the steep coast using very powerful binoculars, who help each boat reach and see any wildlife and soon we were headed out into the big blue and managed to join 2-4 whales we had never seen before… sperm whales.
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| 2 sperm whales with the just a small part of their 'block' style head visible |
Now when they are on the surface, there is not much to see as they look a bit like large floating logs, or when they ‘blow’ to breathe, they only have a very small fin or if they are playing or about to dive way down into the depths some 1,500 mths below us, you may see tail flukes.
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| Sperm whale tail fluke being shown by a playing baby whale |
These whales were socialising with each other plus doing some shallow diving and had a few young whales with them.
After 30-40 minutes with the group, we headed further offshore where a lot of bird activity was going on and soon were joined by a pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins, surging their way through the ocean, younger ones playing around near our boat.
Soon we were in the midst of a feeding frenzy, involving the dolphins plus shearwaters, also diving into the ocean to grab fish.
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| A small part of the overall feeding frenzy |
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| Atlantic spotted dolphin on the charge |
We stayed with them for awhile and then started towards the coast, when suddenly, we were startled by a whale tail lifting out of the water next to us and then a blunt square head popping up above the surface very briefly. It soon disappeared but it was a baby sperm whale waiting on the surface for its mother to return from a deep dive hunting squid.
We slowly circled the extinct volcanic Ilhéu de Vila Franca do Campo Island close to the coast, briefly poking our nose in near the internal circular crater full of water, the 200 maximum of people, allowed on the island at any time, enjoying themselves in and around it.
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| Ilhéu de Vila Franca do Campo Island is on the right |
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| People on our boat trying to get photos of the caldera 'playground' on Ilhéu de Vila Franca do Campo Island |
Now to the other highlights of our time on São Miguel Island.
Driving
Driving on this island was very interesting at times. Jarad and myself shared the driving on the right hand side of the road in a manual van… which was bigger than most other cars driving around.
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| This is one of the dirt roads we drove on, beautiful but very narrow |
There are a couple of freeways, but most of the time, especially in towns, the roads were very narrow with people parking or stopping anywhere, it also required negotiating with oncoming vehicles because there usually wasn’t enough room for both.
Churches, Halls and Tiles
The main religion is Roman Catholic and throughout the island there were a LOT of churches big and small. Below were some of our favourites.
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| Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Paz or Hermitage of Our Lady of Peace and one of the most iconic historical & spiritual monuments on São Miguel Island |
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| Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Estrela or Church of Our Lady of the Star |
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| Paços do Concelho da Ribeira Grande (city hall) |
On the ground, on houses, on shops, on churches… in fact wherever it took the locals fancy, they used decorated tiles the Portuguese are famous for.
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| This is a street name sign and very common |
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| Bus shelter |
Waterfalls
The islands have a climate which includes quite a lot of rain, in fact, one afternoon it was torrential for a short while. There are many mountains on the island and the foliage is very lush, something we experienced during a few hikes up and down along dirt tracks, to visit just a few of the waterfalls on offer. Whenever we reached one, there were always plenty of people there enjoying a swim.
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| Foliage which is typical when hiking on São Miguel |
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| Hydrangeas are extremely common across the island |
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| Waterfalls and pools were very popular to cool off in |
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| Fowls and their chickens often appeared from the dense foliage hoping to be fed by walkers |
Hot Springs
Being volcanic, at various locations on the island, people can enjoy the natural flows of quite warm thermal water from underground, flowing through ‘curated’ pools where we simply sat and enjoyed the relaxing flow of water assisting our slightly sore hiking muscles.
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| Some of us sitting in and enjoying one of the thermal pools |
Volcanic Lakes & Thermal Activity
From the route map, you can see that we drove across the island a few times, in part to reach destinations on the coast, but also to try and see some caldera based volcanic lakes.
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| A foggy Lago Fogo in the mountains near the centre of the island |
It was quite mountainous, often raining based live camera feeds and also foggy and probably why one of the lakes is called, Lago Fogo. Additionally in the town of Furnas, there was thermal activity at the Caldeiras das Furnas. This included bubbling mud pools and boiling springs... plus the distinct smell of sulphur.
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| Part of Caldeiras das Furnas's thermal area |
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| One of many very hot bubbling thermal pools |
Small Towns & Villages
During our time tripping all over the island, we stopped in a variety of towns or villages and simply went wandering. This gave us the chance to view the architecture of the bigger buildings, the many small homes and yes, many with tile based pictures on them.
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| Small homes in a village each with decorative tiles near the front door |
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| Decoration around a door |
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| Typical small village scene |
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| Tile decoration next to front door of a house |
It was also just as nice to meander down narrow little laneways or spend time in some of the larger public squares, usually with large trees in them.
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| This small city had a large square with dominant tree and typically decorative patterns on the ground |
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| Walking through part of Ponta Delgada |
Beaches
Since we were on an island, there are plenty of beaches to visit and we managed to enjoy a few of them, both with the grandkids or simply to admire. The thing about the islands having been formed by volcanoes, meant the beaches consist mainly of black coarse sand which enjoyed sticking to little bodies.
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| Exploring one of the volcanic 'sand' beaches |
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| The grandies enjoying one of the many beaches on offer but it took awhile to get all black sand off them |
And yes we did enjoy a very nice meals of both beef and seafood, the latter whilst sitting near a beach in the village of Caloura plus watching the locals enjoying themselves in the ocean after work.
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| Rachel & myself admiring some of Azores beef |
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| Very fresh seafood waiting to be consumed |
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| Locals enjoying a swim in front of the seafood restaurant at Caloura |
Plantations
With typically mild temperatures, an abundance of moisture and volcanic soil, we visited 2 plantations during our visit, the first growing very succulent and expensive pineapples and the second a tea plantation.
Both were very interesting but also very labour intensive in their operations, in the case of the pineapples, being grown in glass houses and everything was done by hand.
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| Inside one of the pineapple glasshouses |
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| Young colourful pineapple |
Rachel bought a pineapple wine which we tried on the last night of the trip and by the last glass we were just starting to acquire a taste for it.
The tea plantation used some old pre war looking and very noisy machines to finally produce a variety of tea leaves, with manual checking of the final product(s) to remove any ‘rubbish’. We could freely walk throughout the factory with only a few faded yellow health & safety lines to stop people venturing where they shouldn’t.
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| The machines were noisy and old but got the job done |
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| Processed tea leaves being collected for the next stages |
Out in the plantation itself, the cutting of the top layer of the leaves used for producing the tea is also done semi manually and again, we could all freely walk wherever we wished.
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| Walking through the tea plantation |
The tea itself was very nice!
Culture
The Azorian culture was on display constantly. We were staying in the small town of Agua de Alto with locals living all around us, they were always quick to say “hola [hello]” or try to help us in some way even with very little English being spoken.
So they were warm and certainly live an island style and on island time, as nothing is rushed too much, which is nice when you’re on holidays.
We were very lucky to be staying in our little town during the week we were here, as it was celebrating its annual religious ‘Festas Santissimo Sacramento’?, culminating in roads through the village being blocked off and the street surfaces being highly decorated using flowers put in place by locals.
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| The festival's week long schedule |
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| Road surface decorations using flowers created by locals right in front of our accomodation |
One of the streets receiving this treatment was ours, and soon there were locals also congregated opposite our door waiting for the big event… the parade.
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| The parade passing our front door, Rob in blue at the left next to the door and locals sitting on a wall opposite to watch |
When the parade started, it took almost 1 hr for it to pass with all sorts of local groups involved together like scouts, bands, priests, other people dressed to the nines. A few hours later they paraded back in the opposite direction and back to the highly decorated local church which we also walked down to view.
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| More of the parade passing out front |
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| The locals sitting on their church's steps after the parade |
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| The same church lit up at night |
Finally it was time for Rob and myself to say our goodbyes to both our family as they flew off to the island of Pico for another week of holidays, and we flew back east to the next component of this trip.
The Azores are certainly worth a visit and is definitely popular by the number of large planes flying into and out of it.
If you would like to see a few more photos of our time in the Azores, click on the link below.
CLICK HERE for more Azores photos
In our next post we visit just a few destinations in a country still on our bucket list, but till then, go well.
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