Prince Infante D. Henrique registered the islands in the map of Europe with the Portuguese Maritime Discoveries. The name Azores is also debatable, but the common theory is that buzzards that populate the islands were mistaken for goshawks (called acor) and the name of the misidentified birds stuck.
Animals were sent by Prince Infante D. Henrique in 1431 - 1432, and settlers arrived in 1439.
We visited the port city of Ponta Delgada on the largest island of Sao Miguel. It is spectacular.
The archipelago (my favorite word in the English language, by the way) was formed by volcanic activity and the formations associated with that activity make the Azores stunningly beautiful to visit.
The main industry (and source of wealth) was the export of oranges to the mainland, primarily the U.K. In 1870 the orange groves were attacked by a round of infectious disease that decimated the production, and many locals fled to America or Brazil.
Eventually new crops were introduced (pineapple, tea, hemp, and tobacco) and their economy was back on track. We visited a pineapple plantation...
Even though I knew pineapples were bromeliads it was still weird to see an actual pineapple plant.
Tiny, baby pineapple!
Upon the fields of gold.
Flower within a flower
After the pineapple express we drove to Lagoa des Sete Cedades or Lagoon of Seven Cities. Twin (ecologically separate and individual) lakes set in the crater of a massive volcano. The lakes are situated in a way that on a sunny day (i.e. not the day I was there) one lake in blue (reflecting the sky) and the other is green (reflecting the magnificent foliage).
The color of the lakes is explained by an old story of a widowed king, a princess, and her star-crossed love - the sum of which is that the king forbade the princess to ever see her shepherd boy again, but she snuck off to meet him one last time. They cried and cried she from green eyes, he from blue eyes until their tears were so many that they formed the lakes. The more morbid tale says that they drowned in their tears.
The drive from Ponta Delgada to Sete Cidades is nothing short of awesome. It is among the most magnificent natural landscapes I have ever seen.
Absolutely gorgeous.
In town many yards and fields are fenced by rock walls that are built with the basalt native to the volcanic island, but in the country the fields are fenced with hedgerows of hydrangea. It is breathtaking. I would love to come back to visit in the spring when the flowers are in full bloom.
The Azores are basically a closed ecological system so they don't worry too much about outside contaminants to their food system. Cows are ever present, grass-fed, and their bovine population is completely free of threats from mad-cow disease. The cows, however, have a habit of wandering outside their home field and it is quite common to wake up to cows in your backyard. We even saw a number of cows perched on high hills and rocky ledges more like mountain goats than cows. In the bus, we joked about how the needed signs that said "watch for falling cows" rather than falling rocks.
The population is primarily Catholic and many homes have these tiles over their doors of the various saints the house has been blessed by or dedicated to.
Igreja de S. Nicolau Parish Church
On our way back to Ponta Delgada we stopped at a volcano within a volcano. This crater lake is inside the Sete Cidades crater.
By the time our group made it to this lake the fog was starting to roll in. We were very fortunate to have such good weather on this side of the island. As we reached the overlook between Ponta Delgada and Sete Cidades we could see the other half of the island was already shrouded in clouds. The other shore excursion did not have the magnificent views that we did.
After we were returned to the ship I decided to do a little walking around Ponta Delgada. It is very Portuguese in style with black and white architecture and intricately patterned sidewalks.
Rare, but muted, color
I LOVE this picture SO MUCH!
Original city gate
The Azores have the youngest population in Europe, and you can tell just walking around. There are a lot of kids everywhere! Because there are so many young'uns running around they also have extensive after school youth activities. There are sailing clubs, adventure clubs, farming clubs, scout groups, etc. The day I was in Ponta Delgada there were several scout troops roaming the city participating in what appeared to be some kind of scavenger hunt. They had stations set up where the groups would go and complete a team-building task before moving on.
There were also some awesome graffiti murals on the shore front
There were a variety of cafes and restaurants just outside of the port. I stopped at one for lunch and ordered a chicken sandwich. What was delivered to my table however ...
Was this. You are seeing a corn, tomato, and lettuce sandwich. I did not take even one single bite. /Ick.
Initially when I booked a transatlantic cruise home with a port day in the Azores I thought it was kind of a cool place to say you'd been, but was really expecting a total "throw-away" day. Now I dream of going back for a longer vacation. It is lush; beautiful, friendly, wonderful, tropical, awesome. It also makes a great stop-over if you are flying to Europe. The airport was originally built for military use so they can land any type of aircraft. They have direct flights that are only 3-ish hours from Boston (and maybe somewhere else on the USA side of the ocean) making it a great place to ease into European time zones and culture. Definitely a highlight of my trip...weird, disgusting, sandwich aside.
