Reverse Chronology Reversed

Typically blog entries are posted in reverse chronological order so that the most recent entry appears first.   

Now that the trip is over, presumably anyone reading this blog would like the sequence of entries to lead them from the beginning to the end of our trip.  For this reason, I have used artificial dates and times to put the posts in that order.  Any date in a title is accurate, it is just the date posted that has been altered.  

When you get to the bottom of a page, clicking OLDER POSTS will actually lead you to newer dates (i.e. the continuation of blog post in chronological order). 

Overview of Trip

Although participants in a group trip organized by the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the New Bedford Chamber of Commerce, Pam & I will depart two days ahead of the group.  

On Tuesday, September 09, we will travel to Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores, arriving early the morning of Wednesday, September 10.  We will spend two days there (hopefully) seeing some of the sites we missed last year due to various combinations of time, weather, visibility, bus size and group-think. 

(To read about our September 2013 trip to the Azores, go to...http://azores2013.blogspot.com/)

On Friday, September 12 we will rendezvous with our group when it changes planes in Ponta Delgada for the flight to Madeira.

On Friday, September 19 we will return home, flying from Madeira to Lisbon to Boston.

On our way

We were in the limo and rolling along I-495 on route to Logan Airport by 6:45 PM.  We got the the airport about 7:30 PM.  There was the usual shuffle forward in line for ticketing, but we breezed through security. 

The flight loaded early, but departed barely on time thanks to one missing passenger.  While waiting, Pam & I busied ourselves getting ready to grab a few hours sleep.  We positioned pillows, got out eye covers and earplugs and generally prepared to make ourselves as comfortable as possible in a plane seat that only reclined a few inches.

We were wheels up at 10:40 PM with a flight time of 4 hours 20 minutes. 

Azores - September 10

Our SATA flight arrived on time - 7:00 AM.  We quickly cleared Immigration and Customs.  Our transfer to the hotel was waiting for us.  By 7:30 we were checked in at Hotel Marina Atlantico but, no surprise, our room was not ready.  

We had breakfast, changed shoes, met our driver Carlos*...

...at 8:30 and headed out on a tour. The tour was to the western part of the island.  Last year the day we toured this part of the island it had been foggy and rainy.  And our course our destinations were limited by the size of the large bus.  This year the weather although not perfect was significantly better and our sedan was able to go many more places. 

farmer with Azores Cow Dog in tow

typical view along west coast of Sao Miguel Island

hot water from a geo-thermal spring warms the ocean water

an impressive natural arch

a free-standing wall made out of lava rock

No geothermal feed into this pool
- Pam smiling because she is not going in it.

commercial fishing boats in one of the small villages

These rocky outcrops dot the waters offshore
- imagine what is just below the surface.

Do these cows develop shorter legs on one side
that the other grazing on such steep slopes?

Looking down at Sete Cidades from the crater rim

Lagoa de Santiago (also inside the crater)

Green (foreground) and Blue Lakes divided by bridge at Setes Cidades

A relic of another time (not too long
ago in the Azores) - an aqueduct

another relic - a windmill
These are coming back as tourist attactions
similar to staying in a lighthouse.

Wonderful seafood lunch arrives on a fishing boat at A Traineira in Lagoa...

...and the delivery of the bill was amusing.

 

When we got to our room about 3:30 PM we promptly flopped down four an hour's nap, not allowing ourselves any longer for fear we could sleep right through dinner.  We in fact had a good dinner, albeit at the wrong restaurant (a story for another time) and were back in the hotel with lights out about 9:30.

The restaurant we ate at, and which we had eaten at twice on our previous trip was...

It is less than a five minute walk from the Hotel Marina Atlantico.  The menu has a picture of each dish.  The staff speaks enough English to be helpful.

*  Jaime Futardo was our contact for arranging a transfer from the airport and connecting us
    with Carlos.  His e-mail address is lindodriver54@hotmail.com and his phone number is
    351-919 384 242 

Azores - September 11

We slept until 8:00 this morning, then rationalized it by noting it was 4:00 AM in Boston.  We had a leisurely breakfast.  Our driver Carlos arrived at 9:30.  

Today we toured the central section of Sao Miguel.  We drove out to the east, then turned northeast ascending to Lagoa do Fogo (Fire Lake).  The top of the mountain is 3,000 feet above sea level.  It is part of the volcanic rim in which sits the lake.  We then proceeded to the fishing village of Rabo de Peixe, turning east from there and passing through Ribeira Grande, Riberia Seca to Matriz before returning to Ponta Delgada about 2:45.  Along the way we had a nice lunch in a no-name restaurant in a small village.  

As with yesterday's blog, I have opted for captioned pictures rather than robust text. 

An abandoned tuna processing plant near Ponta Delgada.

Ponta Delgada viewed from the east.

A tree outside monastery in Logoa...

...and the monastery.

Ascending Lagoa do Fogo both the north and south
coasts can be seen - a span of 8 kilometers.

Another view back at Ponta Delgada

Caldeira Vehla hot springs park

Heated gases warm the water.

The heated water flows into this swimming hole.

A bit further on in the park was
a swimming hole with unheated water.

Along the north coast of Sao Miguel
are caves dug into the shoreline.

In another time, when pirates approached,
the villagers descended into the caves.

They hid in an undoubtedly more primitive
version of these caves until the pirates left.

Neither a villager nor a pirate.

In 1563, this village fountain was buried under six feet of lava.

Main cathedral in Ribeira Grande

Another view along the north coast looking west

A bit further along and looking east

Impressive size for a hydrangea
- and we saw lots of them this size.

Makes entering the Westport River in a blow look easy by comparison.

We ate dinner at a local seafood restaurant across the street from our hotel, walking both ways in the rain.  

Back in our room we finished most of our packing in preparation for our early departure tomorrow to Madeira.

Azores to Madeira - September 12

We were up at 6:00, had breakfast at 7:00 and left for the Ponta Delgada airport at 7:30.  We zipped through ticketing and security.  We rendezvoused with our group from New Bedford Whaling Museum and New Bedford Chamber of Commerce who had just arrived on the night flight from Boston.  

At 9:30 we boarded the flight to Madeira...

...arriving there two hours later.

We are staying at the Four Views Monumental in the Lido section of Funchal.

We wandered around a bit, picked up some provisions for our room since we will be here for a week, then joined our group for an early dinner.  After dinner some of us sat out by the pool for a while before calling it a night.

We leave on our first tour tomorrow at 9:00 AM.

Madeira: North Coast - September 13

Because of where we are in the western end of the time zone (GMT +1) we enjoyed the early morning sky while having breakfast.

We left the hotel at 9:00, boarding the bus for our tour to the north coast of the island.  We climbed out of Funchal to Cabo Giraud where there was an observation platform with a glass floor and an open grate floor.

looking back at Funchal

 

The road up to Cabo Giraud and down was steep and narrow with numerous switchbacks, all making the driver's skill in maneuvering our fully-size bus impressive. As the day progressed we would find that switchbacks and tunnels are commonplace on this mountainous island.  In fact, there are 147 tunnels on the island, many thousands of feet long.

 

Having descended to the coast, we visited Ribeira Brava, seeing Lady of Fatima cathedral and walking around.

 

Once again we climbed, this time into the clouds to an altitude of about 4900' before descending to Porto Moniz.  There were moments when visibility was good but much of the time above 2500' visibility was limited; above 3500' sometimes to only a few hundred feet or less.

We had lunch at Restaurante Orca, then wandered about, our progress impeded by rain showers, some of which were heavy. (Lasting 2.5 hours, had the weather been better this would probably have still been a long stop.)  It did provide a respite from often straining to understand the accent and word pronunciation of our guide Joaquin.  Perhaps aware of this, he tended to be just a mite tautological, saying the same thing multiple times again and again redundantly and in a recapitulatory manner that was annoyingly repetitive.

descending towards Porto Moniz

Restaurante Orca with swimming complex - red flag = no swimming

 

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL - fishing from 100'  about the water in a rainstorm

Departing Porto Moniz, we headed along the coast. Between the fishing villages of Seixal and S. Vincente, we passed a number of small but impressively tall waterfalls.

 

 

After Saint Vicente, we turned inland, heading back to Funchal.  Eschewing the high speed road in favor of a winding secondary road, we made a couple of stops at scenic vistas along the way.

 

 When we came down off the steepest part of the slope we again saw farming everywhere.  Because of the terrain, most of the farming is done using terracing.  This makes tending and harvesting crops that much harder because farm equipment cannot negotiate the terraces so it is all hand labor.  And even in populated areas, any space not occupied by structures was likely to contain produce.

 

After some relaxation at our hotel, we walked to Villa Cipriani where we enjoyed a delicious, graciously served dinner.