April 11, Terceira
In my past travelogues where our tour included "internal flights", I often groused about being required to get up at "oh-dark-thirty" to head to the airport. Not this time - all our internal flights left at reasonable times, which was a welcome change. We boarded a TAP flight from Lisbon to Terceira, one of the nine islands of the Azores. The flight was about two and a half hours, and was pleasant.
The Azores are volcanic in origin, similar to Hawaii, and are at the junction of three tectonic plates: North American, Eurasian and Nubian. There are no active volcanoes in the Azores, but there are many dormant ones, as well as hot springs created by volcanic action. When the Portuguese discovered the Azores, there were no humans living there and only birds and insects (no biting ones, thank goodness.) Even today there are very few native animals in the Azores.
After checking in to our hotel in Angra do Heroísmo, and lunch (sandwiches from a small shop across the square), we were led on a walking tour by local guide Mario. An interesting thing we saw throughout the Azores was how they used local volcanic basalt, along with imported limestone, to pave their streets and walkways with decorative patterns.
Behind our hotel was a beautiful local garden.
In the evening we split into three groups of five to do a "Home Hosted Dinner", something OAT does on most of its tours. In this case, it was a multi-generational family, where our group was hosted by parents about our age, and the other two groups at homes of a son and a daughter. The dinner was pleasant, but for our group the conversation did not flow well; the other groups with the younger hosts seemed to find it more enjoyable.
April 12, Terceira
In the morning, most of us joined Mafalda on a walk to an embroidery shop overlooking the ocean. There we were shown how the embroidery is done, first with paper patterns with holes transferred to fabric with ink. The fabric is then embroidered at the homes of various women, and then taken back to be carefully trimmed into shapes.
After lunch, we visited Algar do Carvão, one of only two dormant volcanoes in the world where you can walk inside.
Then it was on to some scenic driving (and stops for photos), with our destination being Coffee Cabana, the only place in Europe that grows coffee. Mr. José, who also grows bananas, mangos, papayas and more, showed us the cabanas he rents. We were then treated to some delicious coffee, as well as ice cream made from his coffee. I bought two small bags of the coffee beans to take home.
Our drive back to Angra was interrupted by a herd of cows in the road.
For dinner that evening, we wanted to try a restaurant Mario had suggested the day before - one that overlooks the water. He said that, this early in the season, it would not be crowded. We walked down there around 7PM, which is quite a bit before locals tend to have dinner. The restaurant was empty, but... "do you have a reservation?" We didn't, and were told no tables were available. "How about the next night?" "No, sorry." From what we gathered here and elsewhere, a common (but not universal) practice in Portugal is to have a table reserved for the entire evening, even if two or more parties could be served in that time.
We walked back up and did find a restaurant that would seat us, A Barrica, where we had a pleasant meal and made a reservation for the next evening. While I'm here, I'll mention another Portuguese restaurant custom that we saw a lot on earlier trips, but less so on this one: the server bringing "starters" of bread and olives to the table. In the US, we're used to this as part of the normal service, but in Portugal, if you accept these, even if you don't partake, you're usually charged extra for it. I would always ask - sometimes they were truly complimentary, but sometimes not.