If you are visiting Terceira and dont have family or friends there I would suggest a rental car. There are some places in the world were you can easily get around with out one but Terceira is not one of them. There are to main cities; Angra and Lajes and they are about a 15 minutes apart. It is also fairly easy to drive around compared to other european cities. You get to drive on the side of the road that we are use to and the US Airforce base pressence on the Island means most of the signs are very familiar. Every time im am there I like to take a drive along the road that circles the whole island. Its about an hour if you dont stop but there are tons of cool view points to stop at.

Awsome food, huge plates intended for sharing. If you like seafood I would recommend trying a Tilha of your favorite seafood. Feeds 3-4 people and comes to the table in a traditional clay pot. My favorite is the Pepper Steak(Bife a Pimenta)

Not many people think of the Azores when looking for a destination for their next trip. I did and in November 2007 I went there for two weeks to have a great trip.

From Lisbon I flew into Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel, the islands’ capital and biggest city. I spent a total of four days there and this is a written impression of that time.

The dark of  night had already embraced the island as the SATA Internacional Airbus touched ground at Ponta Delgada’s São Paolo II airport. It was nice to feel the warm salty and most of all pure ocean air fill up my lungs. A taxi took me to the youth hostel in the centre of town. Finding a bed wasn’t a problem as it was November and only a handful of people were staying there. A bit disappointing as I like staying in youth hostels for the social contact with other travellers. Especially when the only other person in the dorm was a German who went out of his way to avoid any form of conversation.

After another smothered attempt to get acquainted I found myself walking through the narrow streets looking for a place to have dinner.

Not wanting to stay out too late I went into a café and had a burger and a bottle of extremely orange Fanta. Both rice and potato chips were served with the burger, which also had a baked egg draped over it.

My first full day on Azorean soil I set out to explore Ponta Delgada properly. To spite it being a Wednesday outside of the main tourist season the place had a nice buzz. It has everything you can expect to find in a modern western town but at the same time has a very relaxed rhythm. The place was covered in Christmas decorations and while ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’ gently poured out of the speakers in every street, I walked around in my t-shirt at a nice 22 Celcius.

I went looking for a good map of the island ‘ cause I wanted to do some major hiking later on. Only to find there are no decent hiking maps available. I needed one with a grid on it to use with a GPS as I sometimes wander off the roads and into the countryside. After half a day of legwork, including a visit to the cartography department of the Azorean regional government, yielded no results I gave up and bought a tourist map not really suitable for serious hiking.

A lover of gardens and plants I couldn’t not visit the José Do Canto botanical Gardens. A collection, carefully put together over a period of over 150 years that made for a very relaxing two hours of wandering through the exotic vegetation.

For dinner I made my way to a restaurant that came recommended in my travel guide for it’s superb steaks. Restaurante O Jordão has a sign claiming him to be ‘The King of Steaks’. This self-awarded title was well justified once I took the first bite. It was indeed royal.

I met a Danish woman in that restaurant and we went out and had a few drinks together. At the end of the evening we both went our separate ways. No exchanging of phone numbers or e-mail addresses, just the memory of enjoying each others company in conversation for a few hours.

I’ve never been one for big birthday celebrations but it was nice receiving birthday messages on my mobile while sitting in bright sun and gazing at the tranquillity of the Atlantic Ocean.

Some more exploring of the town found me going through some more narrow streets and a bit away from the centre. A visit to the António Borges Garden saw me walking through an obviously man-made piece of nature. It’s the biggest of the many municipal parks in Ponta Delgada and there were a lot of loud youths and young couples making out in the numerous little corners of the park.

I went back to the youth hostel to have a rest before going out to dinner. I asked to be put in another room which was no problem. I immediately had the social contact I longed for in the shape of a Polish guy with whom I went out that evening to have a drink for my birthday. We ended up in a place called Cantinho Dos Anjos (‘Cantina of the Angels’), a sailor’s bar full of memorabilia of passing sailors and other travellers.

After a king size burger we had a great night with a mix of locals and travellers. Later I ended up staying for three days with a Canadian I met that night and who lived on Pico, one of the other islands.

The next day I left for a few days hiking and on Saturday I was back in Ponta Delgada. Because it was weekend the town centre was a bit busier than before and by the evening there appeared lots of cars on the narrow streets packed with dressed-up youths an equipped with very loud stereo’s. On Saturday night the centre becomes very much alive as the people from the surrounding towns come here for the nightlife. It’s obviously not New York or London’s West End but it had a nice buzz to it.

As on week days, the bars don’t come alive until around 10p.m.. The same goes for restaurants.

Sunday saw me taking a day trip to Furnas, in the east of the island. I came back in the evening looking for a restaurant to have my final dinner in Ponta Delgada only to find that on Sunday, a lot of places are closed. Not just shops but also restaurants and bars so it took a while to find a restaurant still open.

The next morning it was off to the airport to fly to the island of Pico. I took one last look at Ponta Delgada from the plane as it glided away over the ocean. How was any of the other islands going to beat this experience?

Practical:

Language:

English will get you by quite well in Ponta Delgada although knowing some Portugese can be very helpful. The Azores have a very distinct accent which can make them difficult to understand even for Portugese speakers. Every island also has their own accent and vocabulary and on the bigger islands there are even differences between regions of the same islands.

People:

Azoreans are very laid-back in most everything they do and making contact with locals is not very difficult. They will help you with anything if asked. After a few days you will find yourself slowing down to the Azorean rhythm with them.

Traffic:

Whereas southern European traffic can be very hectic, in Ponta Delgada it’s much more relaxed. At rush hour the streets fill up with cars just like in any other town but drivers wait in line patiently and horns are not often used.

At the moment major construction is taking place at the waterfront boulevard.

Sights:

-José do Canto Botanical Garden: for those interested in horticulture this comes highly recommended. Admission is € 2,00 and for that you get a booklet which is available in English, be it with some poor translations from time to time.

-António Borges Garden: more of a park. No admission and worth a stroll through. It has lots of youths outside the school hours.

-marina: Ponta Delgada has a modern but well designed marina that can make for a nice evening walk. At the moment expansion work is taking place.

-buildings: there are some interesting buildings and squares in town. The town hall is nice, as is the church of São Sebastião opposite of it.

-whale watching:

The real Azorean centre for whale watching is the island of Faial but several companies offer trips in very small vessels, weather permitting.

If you want to know anything else, feel free to send me a message and I will try to help you as best I can.

We took a small plane to São Miguel. Music of Ella Fitzgerald accompanied us during take off and landing (Sata). On this island I tryed once again to see whales, unfortunately we didn’t see any whales, although we saw a lot of dolphins.

This island has a beautiful botanical garden with a swimming-pool. The water looks dirty but you can swim in it.

Lagoa das Furnas reminded me of Iceland: the smell!!! Sulphur-springs everywhere. The people of São Miguel cook in the ground, which they call: cozido das Furnas. I tryed it and it was a good meal.

Never knew how pineapples grow. But now I know (see picture). The pineapples taste very sweet.

The night live isn’t big on the Açores. However I found a new hobby: karaoke ;-) We celebrated our last evening of our journey at a nice square with a lot of locals.

São Jorge is my favourite island. It has a laid-back style. No hurries… I forgot the name, but I believe that is was on this island that we ate at a really nice restaurant where they serve biological food.

You can not take pictures inside but Igreja de Santa Barbara is a beautiful church. Inside you will see many paintings en tiles which tell the story of Santa Barbara. Every day a person sits on the churchs steps to tell the story of the church. That is very remarkable, there is not much to do in the area and they wait all day although they don’t now if anybody will come and visit the church.

We had a good walk from one fajã to the other fajã.

From Faial we took a boat to the island Pico. It is a nice island to take a walk. You can see also vineyards. The island has an ideal climate to produce wine.

Faial

Horta is a lively place where you find a lot of sailers. Sometimes the Açores are for them the first time they see land after sailing for days / weeks. The sailers make colourful paintings in the harbour. Peter Café Sport is a very famous café, which is a nice place to go out for a drink in the evening.

Swimming with dolphins; I was looking foward to do that. I was naïve. Why would wild dolphins swim with people? Far away from the coast we find a group of dolphins. As quick as we could we jumpt in the ocean. But the dolphins were swimming fast away. Not once we had direct contact.

After arriving at the airport on Faial and collecting our luggage (which thankfully had not ventured to another airport) we were taken by Taxi to our hotel.  That evening we had time for a quick walk down the main street and a meal at Peters Bar, apparently a famous restaurant.

Breakfast was provided for us at the hotel and there was a huge selection including bacon and egg, cereal, fruit, bread and yoghurt.  I opted for my standard bowl of cereal with plenty of milk most days.

On the first full day we went for a walk up to the local 'mountain', Monte da Guia, which took a few hours and provided us with magnificent views of Horta, the main town on the island.  We had lunch at a cafe that overlooked the harbour and it was amazing how cheap the food was.  €1.75 (£1.20, $2.35) for a chicken baguette and not much more (€2.50 I think) for burger and chips.  It was really nice food too.

Later in the week, after reading the guide book we discovered that there was a natural phenomenon to be seen from halfway up the Monte da Guia (water shooting out of a hole as the waves hit the coast) and also an interesting walk over the other side of the mountain.  So, we decided to do the walk again.  On getting to the top we found that the extra walk was no longer an option - it had been closed, and for all our looking we saw no sign of water shooting out of a hole.  Still, we got some nice views, even if we had already seen them before.

For me the highlights of the holiday were the whale and dolphin watching trips.  Actually we enjoyed them so much that we went on three.  Three times we headed out into the Atlantic ocean in a small inflatable boat.  After a couple of backbreaking waves you realise that when you are about to hit a big wave if you support your weight with your legs, they kind of act as shock absorbers thus preventing your vertebrae from crashing together.  The first trip was the best for seeing dolphins and we saw a number of different species.  The bottle nose dolphins were perhaps the most enjoyable as they leapt into the air, performing the kind of acrobatic manoeuvres that would most likely end my active life if I were to attempt them.  We saw whales in the distance but did not see them deep dive so we went in search of more dolphins on our return journey to Faial, in which we got soaked.

The second trip was not so good and it was cold and wet but the company that we went with told us that we could go on another for half price, which we did.  On this final trip we saw plenty of dolphins again and also saw a couple of Sperm whales deep diving, so we saw their tails.  One of the Sperm whales even surfaced only about 25 meters in front of us, almost under another boat!  Usually you are not allowed to get that close but if they come up right next to you, well, what can you do about it.

Other days were spent driving around the island (with a hired car).  We went to the Caldera, a volcanic crater, although it was cloudy so we did not see anything.  It was still a nice drive to the top.  We also spent some time on a black sand beach, which was something that I had never seen before and it was a great sight.

So, here's how it went. Jimmy and I were picked up by Jim's dad who took us back to their house and we met up with Vicky, Mark and Jim's mum. The trip started with a game of multiple cars, in which we got two cars out of the drive and two back in so we could leave the cars staying home off the street. Sadly, the battery in Carolyn's old Rav went dead the other day so in the rain with the bags packed in the 2 cars we were taking the six of us pushed the Rav up into the drive in the rain and were set to go. Actually, it made me feel like I was in Michigan for a few minutes... anyway, we split up into 2 cars, 3 in each so we could take as many bags as humanly possible. Great times.

The ship's the same one we were on in the winter so we know where everything is already. So that's cool. We spent the first day just chilling, then the second Vicky and I got horrifically drunk after tea and a live show... Poor Mark was lovely and got us back to our rooms which was where the two of us spent most of the following day. lucky we were at sea that day cause I sure couldnt move. I still feel sick when I think about alcohol. Meh.

But, for our first day on land we were all doing good and we even found a car we could all fit in... sort of, to take us around the island. It brings new meaning to the word compact car. They shoved 6 of us in a small car that had a 2nd back seat that was literally invisible until the driver pulled it out and shoved the other back seat forwards. It didn't have leg room so you sat with your knees to your chest and your bum on the floor. Honest, that's what it was like. So, Mark and Jim sat back there for most of the ride.
Anyway, the island was lovely, it was rather small but really pretty with mountains all over, lush greenness and bright blue flowers everywhere. Hydrangeas that grew in walls at the sides of the roads and fields. It was pretty and smelled sweet everywhere. We went all around the island and saw more lagoons than I can count, hot springs and a warm sulfuric waterfall. It was good fun. When we got back to the port we called it a day, it was a brutal long day but really, it was a lot of fun.

  Although I was only here for 2 hours, I did get off the plane and get a quick ride around (as well as a brief introduction to the island). It was incredibly grean - due, no doubt, to the fertile volcanic soil. The beaches, I was told, aren't quite like those of Florida (or Cadiz for that matter). Perhaps I'll get the chance to return and explore some volcanoes.

If you are in Santa Maria in the Azores, stop by the Central Pub. It's a great family run restaurant with awesome pizza.