Ponta Del Gada, Azores

Ponta Del Gada

This was the surprise stop on our trip, to replace the second day in Hamilton, Bermuda which we lost due to

inclement weather, namely strong winds that followed us across the Atlantic. Few on the ship had been to the

Azores or knew much about them, except that they were islands considered part of Portugal. So we decided to

take an excursion in order to learn a little about the islands. There are nine of them and Sao Miguel, where we

docked, is the largest with a population of 35,000 of the 130,000 inhabitants. The Azores are still part of Portugal,

but became autonomous in terms of government in the late 1970s. The university is in Ponta Delgada, with 1000

students and the largest hospital is also there.

What was interesting to us was the large amount of agricultural land. In Bermuda, all space on the island was

taken by housing or touristic buildings such as hotels. On Sao Miguel, once you got outside of the city of Ponta

Delgada you encountered occasional smaller towns or clumps of housing interspersed with planted fields or fields

of grazing cattle. Unlike the Caribbean islands, there was a greater sense of pride in the properties. All homes had

gardens and the majority of them were painted and cared for. Due to the constant high humidity and winds on the

islands there is a lot of mildew to contend with, but it was rarer to see houses with blackened walls that brightly

painted homes with front flower beds and side or back vegetable plots. The whole island is planted with Calla

lilies, azaleas, hydrangeas and other flowering plants. They line all of the roads and are well maintained by the

local authorities, trimmed and cleared back when necessary. The Azoreans are very proud of the flowers and

plants and the guide discussed them at length.

The main industry is milk production and they have milking "houses" that move from field to field as not all cows

are located in one place. If you are a dairy farmer and have 25 cows, the milking "house" comes to you and you

don't have to take your cows to a facility. That being said, our bus was held up in one town as a herd of cows

meandered down the main street ahead of us, so they are not always in the same field. Some of the milk from the

240,000 cows on the various islands goes into cheese production, mostly for export, and yoghurt production,

mostly for local use. In addition there is a pineapple plantation, although it is all under cover due to the less than

tropical climate. Tourism is the third largest industry, with a large number of German visitors especially, many of

whom had built second homes on the islands.

The Azores have their own airline and the airport in Ponta Delgada is quite large and modern looking. The main

tourist season is June-August when the temperatures are a little higher and the hydrangeas are in full bloom. The

islands are volcanic and Sao Miguel has many lakes in the various craters or calderas. Our tour took us to the

most famous, a pair of lakes called Verde and Azul because their color generally reflects the green of the tree

covered hills on one side and the blue of the sky on the other. It is actually one lake, divided by an old stone

bridge, and on our tour was neither blue nor green as the sky was heavily cloudy and the fog hovered over us. At

the tour guide's suggestion, at a cafe near the lakes, we tried Kima, the local drink of choice, which is a slightly

carbonated guava juice. The tour ended by winding through the historic area of Ponta Delgada to the Marine

Terminal area where we had a tasting of the cheeses and some of the wines from the various islands.

While we are not enamored by the wines, the cheeses were very good. After the tour, we spent an hour walking

around the city. Since it was a Sunday, not all businesses were open but there were a lot of local families enjoying

their day at the pools and other attractions at the waterfront. As we sat on our deck in the later afternoon, we were

able to watch a large Russian (we believe) sailing ship leave harbor with the full crew lined up on deck at

attention, as well as the return of locals from a day on the water in their pleasure boats. All in all, we were very

favorably impressed by the whole experience. We doubt that we would make a separate journey to the Azores, but

would certainly enjoy a return if on another cruise that included them in the itinerary.

We finished the day with another 7 course wine and food pairing in La Reserve. What could be better?