The beginning and end of this trip promised to be among the most challenging for our systems of the many exotic trips we had taken with Kris and Heidi. Kris had found The Azores on Budget Travels Best Trips list for 2012. As we did some research and looked into it more they sounded like a good choice for us. There are nine volcanic islands in the archipelago and with just a week we decided to visit only the largest, most developed one, Sao Miguel. We were cautioned that if you’re looking for long hot days on the beach, The Azores are not for you. If you like hiking, beautiful lookouts, and wine and cheese, they could be just the place. That sounded like us so we made our reservations before Marv & I went on our winter trip. We could only fly from Boston to the city of Ponta Delgada on SATA airlines so we used Expedia to get cheap Continental tickets to Boston. While we were in Florida we got word that United had bought Continental and dropped our 10:45 return flight on Easter morning, instead booking us on a 6:28AM flight through Chicago. It’s hard to understand why we would be charged $150 to change tickets but the airlines can make a radical change like that and we have no recourse. We would have flown out of Boston Saturday evening rather than paying for a hotel room in Boston only to leave it at 4:00 in the morning! Oh well, nothing to be done about that.
So Marv and I drove to Heidi & Kris’s house early Friday morning, arriving right at 8:00, as planned. Kris drove the four of us to Grand Rapids, where our flight to Newark, NJ airport was slightly delayed by thunderstorms and sleet but we made it without any problems. We had about 2 hours before our flight to Boston so we got a sandwich for lunch before boarding, again with a slight delay for some reason. It was sunny and clear in Newark so weather wasn’t to blame this time. We had a ditzy flight attendant on the first flight who skipped over us for their beverage service until we asked for something. And on the second they only offered a glass of water and they charged for access to their Direct TV. Since we chose not to pay, the individual screens in front of us showed ads the entire flight, which was very distracting and annoying. All in all, we were pretty unimpressed with United Airlines. We had nearly 6 hours to wait in Boston and found that the desks for SATA weren’t even open until 8:00PM. Kris did some walking and found a nice food court in a different terminal so we had dinner there. We had free WiFi so we could do some checking in with family and on Facebook before we flew out. We also had a chance to check with the United desk to find out where our seats were on the way back. Marv and I had been put in the back row where the seats don’t recline for the flight to Boston and didn’t want to repeat that experience! We found out that we were closer to the front for the return flights (through Chicago) but Kris & Heidi weren’t seated together so they got that fixed.
When we returned to the International Terminal we were able to check in and recheck our bags. Finally we boarded the SATA flight and were truly on our way at 10:30PM, our time. The four hour flight was without problems but they had the lights on full most of the time and served us a full ravioli dinner at 11:30 at night. With a couple of glasses of wine and a Benedryl in us we hoped to sleep during the flight but sleep came only in fits and starts. That really hurt when we landed in Ponta Delgada at 6:45AM, Azure time, which was 2:45AM our time. It was still dark and was raining as we landed. We breezed through passport inspection and customs and found the Ilha Verdi (Green Island) car rental desk and got our car. They gave us a diesel Ford Focus that was big enough to hold us but not the station wagon we had reserved. We managed to get the bags in the back so we decided not to fight that fight. By then the sun had come up but the rain continued. Marv plugged in the GPS and she took us to the Villa we had rented online, the only disagreement coming when the street it is on turned out to be one-way the opposite way she wanted us to drive. Ponta Delgada is the capital for the Islands but it is pretty small (45,000 people) and relatively easy to get around in, with many roundabouts, few traffic lights, and narrow, often one-way streets.
Norberto met us at the villa and showed us around. It is very nice and either pretty new or recently renovated. It has nice wood laminate or terrazzo tile floors throughout. There are three bedrooms and two baths, one with a shower and one with a large whirlpool tub. The laundry room has a dryer but no washer right now but Norberto said he might have a new washer this week. The kitchen is quite large and modern with a dishwasher and a large wooden eating table in the middle. We can go up some outside stairs to a large area on the roof overlooking the city to the west and a view of the ocean to the south. There is a large yard and a small vegetable garden, a courtyard parking area with interesting designs in the paving stones, and remote controlled gates for the high fence surrounding the complex. There are some other buildings within the area but we don’t know what they are. The villa is nestled in a neighborhood at the edge of town with fields and cows very nearby. We think it will serve us very well as a home base this week.
We flipped a coin for the bedroom with a bathroom (Heidi & Kris won that one), unpacked our bags and laid down for an hour or so. Norberto had shown us where the nearby supermarket was so we headed that direction first. Although we can see it from the villa it wasn’t as easy to get to and we missed it the first time. So we continued on down into the main part of town on the harbor (less than 10 minutes away) to look around a bit, to get the lay of the land. It is small, cobblestoned and old world-ly. The temperature was probably in the mid- to high- fiftes and the rain/heavy mist continued as we returned to the grocery store to get some staples. Since everything is shelf-stable we decided to go back to the city center/waterfront. We found a parking spot and walked to the “National Restaurant” for a nice dinner of local specialties. It looks like we will have a lot of pork, beef and fish while in The Azores. The museum we wanted to visit was only blocks away but the rain was heavy enough that we drove to be closer. The principal museum on the island is Museu Carlos Machado and housed in a large, old convent. The information we had said to allow as much as 4 hours to see it all. We were much too tired to imagine we would last that long but we gamely went to try. On arriving we were torn when we found that it was closed for renovations. A sign on the wall outside directed us to the church across the street to see some of the exhibits housed there temporarily and the museum of Sacred Art nearby. The first had a display by a local artist who does wonderful and intricate paper cutting displays. It also has a small charming chapel for the nuns that has been renovated recently. It was very beautiful and surprisingly light and uplifting. The second was a short walk away and was a much larger church with three wide and impressive doors that are no longer used for entrance. It was a Jesuit church taken over when they were driven out in the 1500s. It eventually reverted to the government along with some beautiful paintings and other artwork. Some of the paintings have been cleaned and refurbished and are now on display. The sanctuary itself had more paper cuttings and has an amazing baroque carved wood chancel area that has also been fully restored. We spent a long time looking at it and marveling at the craftsmanship. There is a large oil painting on canvas of “The Coronation of the Sacred Mother” that, when it was taken down for cleaning, was found to be covering an even more impressive and older painting of the same scene that was oil on wood. That must have been an incredibly exciting find for the restorer to have found!! We all felt like the aborted museum trip was actually just about right for our energy level. Back at the villa the rain finally ended and we snacked on wine and bread and cheese for our evening meal. We sat on the rooftop for sunset, which peeked out from the clouds just a bit before disappearing behind the hills. Marv & Kris went for a walk around the neighborhood. After the daylong rain the villa was too cold for us to enjoy sitting inside, even with a space heater in the TV room so we drank some decaf coffee to try to warm-up and went to bed.
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