We spent last week in the Azores, courtesy of Suzanne’s organizational skills, Erik’s driving skills, and the kids’ school vacation.
It was beautiful. The Azores are a group of nine volcanic islands in the North Atlantic. The temperature was 50s and 60s F. We were on Sao Miguel island only. I have a lot of pictures to show you, crossing my fingers that you like derelict buildings as much as I do. There were plenty of spiffy modern buildings — some probably vacation homes for people who can handle frequent air travel — but for me, the crumbling, mossy ones were more picturesque.
The entrance to the “magic tree” park features a lion gate. The lions are made in the local ceramics factory, where we bought tiles. The flower is bird-of-paradise.
We loved the volcanic hot springs everywhere. Some family members went in a muddy one (muddy from iron in the water). It was about the temperature of a hot tub, 102 F. I joined them when they tried the clear hot springs. Fences protected visitors from the boiling ones.
The streets are very narrow. I couldn’t imagine getting in an out of the green garage door below. The sidewalks are nearly nonexistent, and everything stops when the fish van with its loud horn gets stuck behind a grocer loading boxes.
The cemetery was unlike any I have seen before. Nearby, I saw cows grazing. There are more cows than people in the Azores (125,000 as of 2020). Wonderful cheeses. I think I have identified the main dairy cows as Holstein Friesians.
The grotto is in Porta Delgada in one of the many botanical gardens (really the whole island was a botanical garden). Next is the tea plantation, the only one in Europe (Europe because the Azores are part of Portugal).
Check out the close-up of the ubiquitous volcanic rock, basalt, used for everything. Water and gases in lava formed the fossil bubbles. The black ornamentation on churches and chapels is “basaltic relief.”
Many homes have early morning bread deliveries that get hung on doorknobs or left on the doorsill.
My granddaughter, 8, edited the photo of a market’s fruit baskets.
Nearly every home has some kind of saint watching over it, in the form of a ceramic plaque handmade in the factory on Sao Miguel.
A phone booth had been turned into a little library in Porta Delgada.
Nasturtiums, poppies, fresh-air laundry, moss. I worked hard at capturing one of each of these common sights.
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