Eastern Section of Sao Miguel - Friday, September 13

Today's tour not leaving until 9:45, I had planned to wander around a bit soon after sunrise (~7:15)  to take some pictures but complete cloud cover killed that idea.

TOUR DESCRIPTION:
We depart in the morning from Ponta Delgada through the south. Stop at Vila Franca, the first capital of the island of Sao Miguel, and visit the Sao Miguel church, one of the oldest churches on the island, built in Gothic style with beautiful altar woodwork.   We continue the tour; by passing by Furnas toward Povoacao, in the Southeast of the island, where the first Portuguese navigators came to shore, and visit the seashore area. We then go to Ponta da Madrugada, one of the most pleasant view spots of the island, on the coastline. You will then pass by the town of Nordeste, and have lunch at a local restaurant. Continue through the various small towns inserted in nature, at the bottom of Pico da Vara, the highest mountain on the island. We return to Ponta Delgada through the north at the end of the day.


TOUR EXPERIENCE: 

Other than a few of the places visited during the course of the day the description once again bears no resemblance to the course of our day.

Departing our hotel, our first stop was a meet-and-greet with the president of the Azores.  Although part of Portugal, the Azores are an autonomous governmental region. The stop turned out better than expected.  We got a tour of the palace and avoided the political public relations nonsense because the president was tied up in a meeting.

By 11:30 we were on the bus and headed non-stop to Nordeste via Ribeira Grande on the north coast; a distance of about 35 miles.  

On route we stopped at Parque Natural da Ribeira des Caldeiroes.  This was a pleasant location with a small waterfall, a hydro-driven mill for grinding corn and some trails.

We traveled part of the way on a newly built high-speed road.  This infra-structure improvement is a fine example of unintended consequences. Historically, Nordeste was sometimes called the "10th island".  Getting between Ponta Delgada and Nordeste took two or more hours on the old road.  A number of businesses benefited from a round trip taking a half-day or more.  The new road collapsed the time to an hour round trip, putting many of those businesses out of business.

Our next stop was Pico do Vadi.  This overlook of the ocean had a shrine and a vijia.  Whalers would pray at the shrine, then watch for whales from the vijia.

We continued on to Nordeste where we had lunch.

Rounding the eastern end of the island, we came to Miradoura da Pontado Sossego,  a small park with a great view.

Starting west along the south coast we had a brief stop at an overlook called Miradouro do Pico Longo.

We descended to sea level, having a "technical stop" (i.e. restrooms) in Povoacao.  It was a nice albeit photographically uninteresting small town.  In the park was a caged monkey trained to make an obscene gesture if not given food.

After leaving Povoacao the bus turned inland, passing through Furnas (see yesterday's posting) where we turned southwest until we rejoined the south coast.  From there it was west to Ponta Delgada, arriving at our hotel at 07:15.

A couple of thoughts for anyone who takes this tour in the future.  (1)  If the tour is traveling clockwise the better side of the bus to be on is the left.  (2)  The road twists and turns a lot.  Several people experienced varying degrees of motion sickness. 

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Leaving the hotel for dinner, we again crossed the road, this time going to a restaurant at the larger marina.  A Danish 3-masted ship was in port.  During dinner we watched a large inter-island ferry arrive, disembark passengers, cars and cargo, then embark the same things and depart, all within one hour.  The food was nothing special.  The waitress spoke reasonably good English.  She allowed that although she had been taught it in school, she had acquired most of her skill watching TV and movies spoken in English.