Port Towns Provide a Different View of the Azores

Day 9, 2023 North Atlantic Adventure

Saturday, May 20, 2023; Azores, Portugal.

I was last in the Azores on May 5. Since then, we spent one day in Fort Lauderdale and 12 days at sea. During that time, the hydrangeas and azaleas have come into full bloom in these Portuguese islands according to those who ventured beyond our two port towns. It’s warmer but still unpredictable. Sun, clouds, sprinkles. Repeat.

We reversed our course from the end of the Grand World Voyage, stopping at Praia di Vitoria yesterday and Ponta Delgada today. On my first visit I saw much of both islands while on shore excursions. It’s well worth getting out of the ports to see the beautiful volcanic islands of Terceira and São Miguel, about which I blogged about earlier. This time I explored the port towns on my own.

Yesterday in Praia di Vitoria I took the shuttle from the pier into the town and wandered the cobblestone streets. The Portuguese are experts at using the black and white stones to make beautiful patterns that change as the narrow streets head down to the marina area.

When I saw the steep steps up to the Maria statue, I was glad I had visited it earlier via tour bus and didn’t feel compelled to climb the hill.

I also took time to sketch a small chapel and the distinctive Portuguese black and white cobblestones. After finally finishing my second sketchbook from the world cruise (Africa and the Canary Islands), I’ve barely made inroads into the third book covering Europe. I decided to put it aside for now to begin a book on this cruise. I also realized I should have brought two sketchbooks for the 42 ports we will visit between now and July 22, so I think I’ll ask someone who is joining the ship in June to bring one that I can order and ship to her.

I’m also striving to sketch on site instead of later from photos. The work won’t be “finished,” as I will need to paint it later, but I hope it will have a freshness that comes from working “en plein air,” as they say. It also will have a better chance of actually being finished in a timely manner.

Today in Ponta Delgado I took a lazy walk through town with my friends Barbara and Richard, who joined the ship in Fort Lauderdale. We discovered you can buy a tin of local codfish based on the year of your birth. We stopped for a lunch of pizza, beer and soda at a sidewalk café whose awning protected us from the light showers.

I went back later to sketch the Portas Da Cidade, the symbolic old gates of the city, built in the 18^th century. I also was captivated by photographing the many towers – on churches, historic buildings and even private residences and commercial buildings.

Back at the ship, I noticed something missing from the Grand World Voyage – the Welcome Back banner that hung just below the black outside elevator bank. I guess when it’s a short cruise, people don’t think of the ship as home. Actually, the banner makes the grand cruises something special.

Even faithful readers of this blog probably will not have noticed that I started 10 years ago writing a blog a day while cruising – whether in port or at sea. Around 2018, when I repeated the previous year’s Asia cruise, I dropped back to blogging only on port days, with the occasional sea day post thrown in when interesting things happened. I carried this habit through on the recent world cruise.

On this 71-day journey I’ve decided to post slightly less frequently. Writing, editing, curating photographs and posting took so much time on the world cruise that I fell behind, especially when the port days came in groups of four or six at a time. Second (and perhaps more importantly), we are repeating many ports I just visited. There’s not a lot more to say.

I thought about mainly posting photos. But my real love is writing, and I don’t want this to become a simple photo log of my day. I could cut down the time I spend writing – after all, in my reporting days I could write a column inch a minute for the newspaper when I had to. It wasn’t always great writing. And I enjoy the editing. I like to let the copy “marinate” a few hours, and then return to revise, tighten the writing and cut out whole sections that went down a rabbit hole, as they say.

I’ve decided to combine multiple ports into single blog posts, especially when I have written about them before. I’ll link to those previous posts for people who want to know more about the port. As always, I welcome feedback through the comments, so let me know what you think as we travel together on this cruise.