20240511 Saturday, May 11, 2024: Ponta Delgada Açores

For the first time this cruise, we arrive on a foreign shore in the form of Ponta Delgada in the Azores, or Açores as they spell it here.  The Açores were colonized by the Portuguese as a waypoint for travels afar as other Atlantic archipelagos had already been taken by other countries. It is a prized possession for Portugal not only for its convenient geographical location in the middle of nowhere, but also for its rich volcanic soils and verdant hillsides.  Although the Açores comprise only 2% of Portugal’s population, they produce over 30% of Portugal’s dairy exports.  As we approached São Miguel, the largest of the islands in the Açores, the highest volcanic peaks were enshrouded in clouds while the verdant foothills rose up from the shores immediately from the water outside the scattered coastal towns.  The Voyager of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, was already tied up in the port.  Our ship ended up backing into its slip on the outer sea wall with no escort tugs once a pilot clambered up the boarding ladder onto the Caribbean Princess.  

We managed to get off a waitlist to visit Sete Cidades, which is a city made up of 7 villages nestled in and round the volcanic caldera that makes up the western tip of this island.  There were 3 full sized tour bus coaches dedicated to this tour, but the coach departures were staggered a bit to lessen crowding at each of the limited stops.  Although they do drive on the right side, and some people choose to rent cars to self tour, the spike in demand for car rentals whenever a cruise ship is in town results in a half day rental costing over $1K, so guided tours are significantly less expensive and you benefit from the local knowledge or humor of the guides. 

 

Our guide, George, was a bit of a crack up.  He professed to be a cow expert, and every time we’d drive past a bunch of cows in a pasture, he’d tell us how many were in that particular pasture both in heads and legs (36 Holsteins, 144 legs).  When we got into a mountainous area with very steep hillsides, he explained that those are specialized mountain cows. Their uphill legs are shorter than their downhill legs.  And those big plastic wrapped bales?  Simple, those are cow toilet paper.  The white is for new, and the black is used.  Oh, and those brown Guernsey cows over there?  Those produce the finest chocolate milk.  

Our impressions of São Miguel were it is very verdant and agriculture is the main visible industry.  Just about every bit of land that isn’t a steep ravine is being farmed either for food or feed.  We drove past a small plot that had potatoes, squash and bananas.  There are a lot of dairy operations, and lots and lots of big tractors busy in the fields and not infrequently on the roads.  

The roads are VERY narrow, especially when they wind through the many small villages that cling to the hillsides at the periphery of the island.  It’s a good thing the windows on these tour coaches don’t open because they frequently come within inches of the second stories of stone buildings as the coaches drive through these tiny villages.  There are sometimes balconies and windows that zing past within inches and you have to wonder what it’s like to live in a building like that?  They must especially hate tourists.  

In the countryside, which everything immediately outside the main city of Ponta Delgada, there are stone walls that mark out pastures and fields, and frequent remnants of other small stone buildings with collapsed or missing roofs.  Hurricanes have claimed most of these pseudo historic structures.  There are also unusual prominent stone towers atop many lonely hills on the western end of the island which are ruins of windmills.  On the east end of the island, there are more permanent streams which powered grist mills instead of wind power used on the west.  

Sete Cidades is about an hour and a half drive from Ponta Delgada, and virtually all of it is twisting and turning mountainous driving.  There were no coach stops en route, so when we did arrive, everyone was glad to pile out of the coaches.  Unbeknownst to the guides, there was a Decathlon scheduled in Sete Cidades, so they were not able to use their usual parking and rest area in the center of town by the main cathedral.  Instead, we parked by the shores of one of the lakes that has formed in the bottom of the caldera.  This one is called Blue lake, which has a maximum depth of about 30m.  When the sky is blue, the lake looks like a reflection of the blue sky.  At the opposite end of the caldera is a second much shallower lake called the Green lake, which is filled with algae and aquatic plants.  They are separated by a narrow causeway.  There several other lakes in and around the caldera.  The volcanos that left these caldera have been extinct for over 1000 years.  

After several photo stops, the tour circled back to Ponta Delgada where we had a wine and cheese tasting at the Grand Hotel Açores, across the street from the Voyager of the Seas’ moorage.  The venue was designed to deal with throngs of tourists, so even though there were hundreds of Princess passengers, they seemed to handle it pretty well.  There was a spread of 6 different soft and hard local cheeses, along with some breads and jams.  The wines were a white or red table wine meant more for mass consumption than fancy culinary experience, and along those lines, the wine was free flowing.  

From there, it was a short wobble back to the ship.  Janet decided to make a pool day of the rest of the port of call while Ben mustered the energy to hop back onto the city shuttle to walk around Ponta Delgada for a bit while the ship remained in port.  

The Portuguese brought European charm to the Açores complete with narrow pedestrian streets lined with shops and restaurants, but also brought architectural elements we have more commonly seen in colonial South America with cathedrals anchoring a large central town square including a town pavilion surrounded by trees.  The Spanish and Portuguese share these architectural designs.

The cathedral at the town square was flying not the Portuguese flag, but the flag of the Holy See.  While the cathedral looked modest from the exterior, the interior and altar area were every bit as spectacular as anything you’d find on the European mainland.  

There is a Star Fort adjacent to the entry to the main port operations area.  This looks very much like other classic fortifications of the era, and is operated as a military museum.  Unfortunately, I forgot to grab our random € coin stash so I had to content myself with admiring it from the exterior.

We were pretty wiped out between the touring and wine, and ended up napping through our normal sit down dinner time, so we made a bee line to the Princess Theater after shaking the sleep from our eyes, and watched the high energy and dazzling Princess Stage Production show “Born to be Wild”.  This features the cast of singers and dancers and music from the 60’s through the 80’s.  It also prominently features an addition to the cast- a full sized Pink Cadillac replica on stage, which forms the central stage element for much the show after the opening number.  

This was one of our rare dinners in the Buffet instead of the sit down venue.  They featured Indian cuisine which was fortunate since we don’t really have much of an opportunity to have Indian cuisine at home.  They also did happen to have pavlova on the dessert table, which brought back fond memories of Australia and New Zealand.

After dinner, Janet treated herself to watching Back to the Future on the Movies under the stars while Ben downloaded photos from his excursion into town.  Janet enjoyed being back at the Drive In theater (although in this case it could be a swim in theatre).

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and we are back to crossing open seas with another sea day.  It’s hard to believe we made it through an entire day without a single trivia game.