AZORES  - DAY THREE - Getting to Terceira

Blogs: Day 1 - Getting There | Day 2 - Central | Day 3 East | Day 4 West | Day 5 Last Day | Day 6 To Pico | Day 7 Madalena | Day 8 Pico Mountain | Day 9 Pico to Faial | Day 10 Pico East | Day 11 Pico North | Day 12 To São Miguel | Day 13 São Miguel North East | Day 14 São Miguel North West | Day 15 São Miguel Furnas | Day 16 São Miguel Pineapples | Day 17 São Miguel Baths | Day 18 São Miguel Filling the Gaps | Day 19 São Miguel ABF

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The Azores is in the North Atlantic ocean about 1000 miles west of Southern Europe. It consists of 9 islands and is a self governing territory of Portugal. Language is Portuguese and the currency is the Euro.  Luckily for us, English is widely spoken as Portuguese was one language Wendy couldn't quite "get" and according to her, "nothing close to Spanish, very guttural and too many damn diphthongs".  She does know a smattering of basic phrases, like Thank You, Yes, No, basic greeting and most importantly, Beer and Wine.  LOL

The plane pictured above was our ride there from JFK New York. Airbus A321 NEO. Slightly larger than your typical A320, the NEO stands for New Engine Order, meaning the plane is equipped with a new design engine.  It is more efficient and uses less fuel than the 320 and 321 making it able to cross the Atlantic, but inside, other than being a little longer with a handful more seats, it still feels like a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320.   This is your go to plane for domestic flights. Really weird for me crossing the Atlantic in a much smaller plane, normally would have flown Jumbo 737, 777 and even a A380 which are 3 times the size!!

The plane was EMPTY!!! Every passenger had a row of 3 seats to themselves with at least another 20 being empty. Making the 5 hour flight pretty comfortable. We arrived in Sao Miguel island at 7am and caught our connecting flight to Terceira island at 8:30am.  This after a little confusion with the airline representative sending us to the wrong place in the airport but managed to fix it before the flight took off.  I think they felt sorry for the stupid Americans!  LOL

The flight to Terceira was only 30 minutes and was in a Bombardier Q400 NextGen Turbo Prop, small but OK. The airport is small and cute and we picked up our rental car and headed out to our AirBnb. Wendy elected to drive the stick shift as she prefers me to navigate, because, well..... sometimes she is directionally challenged! OK, she's always directionally challenged! We were upgraded to a Jeep Renegade from our booked sub-compact, so a nice deal.  Wendy might get mad if I talk about how she (we) couldn't start the car. 

First thing we noticed that there are stone walls for fences everywhere! They are made out of volcanic rock which is plentiful and help protect plants and farm animals from wind.  These stone walls also create pastures as cow farming in a BIG DEAL in the Azores. Many were built hundreds of years ago and are still standing.

The coastline on this island is mostly cliffs with fantastic views and very few beaches. Homes are built right to the edge and the roads leading to them are challenging to say the least. Wendy did a fantastic job negotiating the steep ups, downs and hairpin turns AND driving a stick for the first time in decades.

..and finally... we arrived at our 2 bed 1 bath AirBnb with loft and this, my friends, is the view from our balcony.  Speaking of beer and wine, the wine Wendy is drinking is a very nice Azorean white table wine we bought for the whopping princely sum of €1.79.  Did I mention there are vineyards everywhere?  Wendy is a happy woman!

So a nice place with the great view, but..... WTF???? There is a full drum set in the living room!  Wendy won't stop playing them - I think I need to tie her hands up.  OK....that didn't come out how it was meant!  Oooops!

Wendy's last words:

Holy CRAP (and y'all know that's NOT the word I wanted to use!!!) the roads are (blanking) insane here!!!!!!   Being a bit tired I really could not bring myself to doing that road again after going to the grocery store.  So I messaged the owner to ask if it was OK to overnight park on the ocean road.  It's only a 4 minute walk to our house (up hill both ways!  LOL).  He kind of chuckled and said after 3 or 4 times I'll get used to to the road.  Ya know what - I don't know if I wanna get used to it.  It's  definitely a "change your underwear" kind of road!!!  No undie comments from the peanut gallery! 

Below are the welcome goodies our AirBnB owner gave us.  Fresh honey from an apiary down the road, coffee and Azorean conventional sweets!  YUM!  No, they didn't come with a bite out LOL!  These sweets, as the name implies, were originally made by nuns in the 15th century.  Pasteis de Nata are my favorite and be prepared to see lots of pictures in the upcoming days.  Nom Nom Nom!!!

Regarding not being able to start the car.  OK. Yes.  Operator error and new fangled electronic start thingy majingy couple with it's a stick.  And the dang instructions were in Portuguese until I figured out how to change the language setting (Hey! give me a bonus for that technological advance!!!)

Boa Noite Amigos!