Wewere sad leaving our little Sao Jorge cottage this morning. Why do all good things must come to an end anyway? I hope to be back to Sao Jorge one day.
The usual ‘hurry up & wait” at the airport for the 20min flight but we had done our homework and hit the ground running once we got to Terceira. First things first – check in to our new home for the last few days of the trip (can’t think about that!). What a contrast! From remote lava stone cottage to sterile urban apartment that feels more like a dorm – 2 rooms divided by a small kitchen with only a hot plate – no outdoor wood BBQ dinner here. But it is VERY nice, RIGHT on the water. I shouldn’t complain, it’s not like we spend much time at the house anyway!
Not only do the accommodations differ, Sao Jorge & Terceira couldn’t be more different to each other – Terceira has more of a ‘city feel’ to it, way more developed and modern, shops, restaurant, old town/ square, entertainment, and a hell of a lot more touristy than what we’ve seen to date. That’s all relative of course, we are still in the Azores afterall! Still lots of outdoor spaces, small towns line the ocean with cow pastures as far as the eye can see in some areas, ancient volcanic evidence & beauty all around.
Luckily we had done our research and knew that today would be the only day to visit the natural caves, only opened from 14:30 to 17:30 so after checking in and changing, we headed out to the 3 sites – 1 site for Furnas (steaming holes in the ground) and 2 different types of lava caves, one vertical the other horizontal, each quite different. The vertical one was much bigger, shaped like a cone with a lot of vegetation at the top, it was very ‘manicured’ for tourists with concrete staircases going deep to the bottom of the cone. The horizontal one was smaller and much more rugged – we had to wear hard hats, the first sign of any safety precautions we’ve seen since we got to the Azores – the floors were very uneven and the ceilings low. I found the second one much more interesting. Both were very humid with water dripping constantly. My first time ‘caving’ – i can check that off the list.
Next stop was going to be a late lunch. We headed up / across island, found a restaurant in a small town, went in but were told that they were closed for the afternoon, only open for lunch and didn’t open again til 6:30pm for dinner. I asked where else might serve food now and was told “it’s going to be very difficult to find anything right now” as this is the restaurant schedule everywhere! On that note, we figured we’d make our way back to the main town, Angra do Heroísmo, where surely they would serve food even in the middle of the afternoon. We took the scenic route through small towns along the ocean, high up on the cliffs – there isn’t much beach / ocean level.
Road block, policeman holding traffic for the running of the bulls! For real! This is a Terceira tradition – every day (even Sundays!) from May 1st to October 15th, they have running of the bulls in the streets. We were first told about that last week when we told someone we were coming to this island. I was surprised that we had not read about that before coming or maybe I blocked it out of my mind when we were planning. It changes town / location each day and from what we saw, it’s a big party for the locals and tourists alike. Streets are lined, people open their homes and yards to watch from, there was a beer truck and party atmosphere. Since we just ‘stumbled upon it today’, we got there towards the end of it and didn’t have the best viewpoint but still got the feel of it and the bull did come our way a couple times, quite exciting! They have a stuffed dummy in the middle of the street, held by ropes and the goal (i think) is to have the bull attack the dummy. To entice the bull down to the dummy, real people (i think there is an official person) and then some other brave souls tease and run on the streets. One of the dudes, an older gentlemen couldn’t quite outrun the bull and got knocked down. Luckily he was ok but also got teased a lot! His buddies came running down the street with a cooler of beer doing ambulance sounds! Gave him a cold one and some ice for his knees/hands. I’m sure he’s going to be quite sore today!
Then a cannon goes off signalling the bull has been caught, all is over. So we got back in the car and made our way to the main town and by now restaurants were open for dinner service. We will plan to go see today’s running of the bulls as the tourist person at the airport told me that Sunday’s running is one with the best viewing places. We will plan to get there earlier and partake in a bit more of the celebrations!
The town centre of Angra do Heroísmo is quite big and beautiful. Busy, cobblestone streets, shops and restaurants. They were setting up for a concert in the square but that wasn’t going to be til 10pm, too bad, there was still 2hrs to kill and that was going to be too long so we passed on that party.
Checkmarks ✔️ 