Ponta Delgada, Ilha de São Miguel, Açores, Portugal
Ponta Delgada is the main city on the Azores Island of San Miguel. It is kind of the capital city of the Azores, on the most populated island. We have six days here (after losing out one day on the flight delay) to explore. When I was setting the trip up I thought about cutting it short here and trying to spend a few days on a second island, but decided that it would be more relaxing to just settle in and see how we liked it this island. We can always return another year.
I found some good information to help with our planning by googling San Miguel, and one local guy has a pretty good PDF of information here.
We spent two days pretty much staying in the city, plus each evening and early morning. The other four days we took road trips to various parts of the island. Those will be separate posts. This post will cover just Ponta Delgada and close surrounding areas, as well as the street art and food.
We are staying in a big, white, four story, refurbished old warehouse. Our room is on the front corner, with twelve foot ceilings, hard wood floors, a huge open floor plan, three sets of huge double windows and two sets of French doors opening out to two balconies. We have a table and chairs, couch and small kitchen. It is very clean, very minimal, and very light. The great thing is that, when we had the twelve hour flight delay they sent me the door code and arranged it so we could get in our room at 3:00 in the morning.
We rented our almost new Honda from Ilha Verde (Green Island) at a very good price. They are a local family and I’d guess over half the rental cars on the road are from them. And to their credit, when we arrived in the airport at 3:00 AM, their booth was open and a lady was waiting for us, all cheerful and glad we made it.
There are about 245,000 people total living on the nine main islands of the Azores. About 69,000 live here in Ponta Delgada; and 138,000 (more than half the total population of all the islands) live here on São Miguel. That gives you some perspective on the size of things.
So most of the islands, this one included, is land as opposed to cities slash towns slash houses.
Ponta Delgada is half modern with apartments, a couple high-rise hotels and shopping mall, and half old city with narrow, one-way cobble-stone streets of white-washed houses, and the usual collection of convents and churches from the 16 and 1700s.
There is a long, coastal promenade called Avenida that runs along the harbor and maybe three kilometers to the village of São Roque. This is a nice place for a nighttime stroll along the waterfront, or in the town, going square to square.
The big main cathedral is Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião. It is lit beautifully at night, and the bells ring pleasingly every hour for just that nice “European” feeling.
The main square between the harbor and the church has the old city gates, and right now a bunch of white wicker “sculptures” of starfish, fish in cages and a giant mermaid.
White “jellyfish” hang from every light post and on wires up and down the streets.
It is the “White Ocean Celebration” and they have a pretty cute mermaid on their website, here.
Or maybe she is an angel…?
Whatever.
It reminds me of the Mac McAnally song, “It’s My Job.” Here you go, listen to it while you read on:
The song starts at 2:30 but the intro is nice as well.
Expensive?
Sure as shit.
But worth the tax money? Well, look at the amount of money made from tourists like me, and the amount of daily joy and appreciation the locals get as a side benefit.
It’s funny, the cobblestones have a certain “stick” to them that makes tires squeal on every turn, no matter how slow. Plus, being cobblestone, you “roar” along even at low speed. And driving the narrow, steep streets you are always in 1st or 2nd gear, so your engine is racing along.
Between the “zooming” of the engine, the roaring and the tires squealing it sounds like a constant race is going on. It takes a day or two to stop cringing and turning around as you jump out of the way every minute to some car “racing” up behind you..
Gail is shopping one afternoon, and we walk into a store with a coffered, painted ceiling and tile floors… it is almost museum quality, and we are in a frickin' clothes store. Did I mention the tile work and paintings on the walls?
See the photos below.
Ponta Delgada has a Chinatown. Doesn’t every main city? This Chinatown has a sign (lit in two colors at night!), one “Chinese Store” selling the usual tourist crap, and one combination Chinese - Japanese restaurant.
So we spent a few days driving the island to see other sights. But meanwhile, on our down time here in Ponta we settle into an easy, comfortable routine. Coffee at 6:00 at the earliest coffee bar, down by the harbor. By day two he knows my order, by day three he is looking for me. I’ll have to tell him the day before we leave that I won’t be back. I sit out with the other early risers, drinking my coffee garoto (espresso with a drop of milk, called a macchiato in Italy), watching the young, all -night party crowd stumble by, trying to find a place to eat, trying to find a partner.
Cafè Garoto.
So confusing at first.
We have been in six countries, five languages, and I am getting mixed up now. I say “Danke” or “Merci” when I should be saying “Abrigado,” and I use a random mix of Si, Yes, Ja, Oui when I really mean Sim.
"How was the food?” the waiter asks.
Depending on my level of confusion, mixed with a half liter of wine, the food is either "Va tutti bene," or "Alles ist gut," or "Ce bon," or if I am lucky "Tudo é muito bom."
Or screw it all: All is good!
Anyway, at various times I order a Cafè Garoto at other restaurants or bars, depending where we are eating, and sometimes I get a totally different, more milky drink. It is so frustrating, yet something that has happened these past years as we travel; I know the words, and I know what I am saying, but my American born and trained tongue just cannot say it correctly. I don't roll the r, or accent the o, my c is not slurred to a sh and my i is not an e.
I think that is why I like to stick with one bar for morning coffee, and get to know one barista. Once we get through the first order, it is consistent day to day.
We dropped off our laundry Wednesday, the last time of this trip, and for ten euros we got it back all folded neat. That’s my job when we travel: do the laundry.
Check the “good husband” box.
We went over to the largest mall in all of the Azores. It is about a fifteen minute walk there, and fortunately for me takes about fifteen minutes to walk through. It’s pretty small. I hate shopping.
Another check in the good husband box.
There was a real whaling ship inside the mall however. That was cool.
We walked over into the “newer” section of Ponta, to a park called O Jardim António Borges. It is a real surprise. Built between 1858 and 1861, it was a private garden until 1957 when it was given to the city. There are lots of really big trees, a couple little water features (ie: scummy ponds or puddles) and some really cool rock structures like caves, forts and old ruins. I think they were built for the park, and that they are not some historical castle or something.
We continued down to the harbor front to the old fortress, Forte de A. Brás. It looks like the other Portuguese forts we have seen, square, stone walls, little slit windows. We stopped for a snack, then walked along looking at the colorful fishing ships.
It hit me: we are 1000 miles from Portugal, 2/3 of the way from US to Europe. We are so far out in the ocean, yet we are closer to New York now than we are at home in California.
Think about that.
If you live on the East Coast you are four and a half to five hours from a mini Portugese Paradise.
São Miguel is the most visited and most populated island.
Pico has the high volcano (2351 meters, snow in the winter) and vineyards.
Terceira Island is the “party” island (But not like Ibiza or Cannes or something.).
Here it is all more quiet, rural and sports activities are the norm. These are not beach islands, not like Italy or Greece or Croatia. There are a few beaches but nothing organized with umbrellas bars or beds.
I think with the high humidity, small towns, flowers and lush trees it most reminds me of Costa Rica but even that is a stretch. It is just a really unique place.
I wish we had the time to visit Pico with the volcano and vineyards, or maybe Teceira.
For more information on the history of the Azores, go here.
Around Ponta Delgada
God, I wish I could do that. What a cool journal he must have.
Wait... that lady has mini watercolors, and she is painting...
and that group of three over there...
Turns out to be a tour group sketching and painting. I am jealous, not only of their talent but their time...
Perhaps when I retire, between gardening, travel, reading, cooking, fixing up the house...
There is an art festival going on this summer, and little installations around the islands. We see a lot of street art, plus the usual graffiti and flour-paste stickers.
Below are some photos of the best, plus some general weirdness.
Street Art, Graffiti, Weirdness and Quirks
Vinho (wine) has been produced in the Azores for at least five hundred years, mostly on the island of Pico. All the wine I am drinking comes from there, except if I get something from the mainland by mistake.
I had this note: "Some top Azores labels to look for include Terras de Lava, Curral Atlantis, Azores Wine Company, and Frei Gigante. The latter turns out wines made with the “forbidden grape,” Isabella, which was banned in much of Europe long ago after U.S. varieties brought an outbreak of rot." So we tried as many of these as we could.
They have a lot of local fresh food. Stuff like lapas (limpet clams) which are pried off the rocks and can be eaten raw or grilled. I like the grilled, called lapas grelhadas, with butter, garlic, and a drizzle of lemon.
I am still looking to get cracas, the barnacles I tried and loved on mainland Portugal about five years ago.
The red peppers they serve with meats, called Pimenta da Terra… yum! The "pepper of the land" is lightly sweet and slightly spicy.
We try the local cheese, and both hate the soft, runny, flat tasting goat cheese, but love the firmer ones. Everywhere are local pineapples; in the market, the stores, on menus. They are smaller than the Hawaiian pineapples.
And the fresh fish… tuna especially, and swordfish. The mercato had amazingly fat tunas (whole) and even moray eels!
In no particular order here are things we enjoyed:
Café Central, on the main square, for a breakfast of cheese, honey, and walnut toast. That is a thing here. Cheese with honey and almonds or walnuts, baked in the oven. I tried it, but had chocolate cake.
We ate at a little ugly placed called A Tasca. It is a small, very noisy café with inexpensive tapas. A “Tasca” means a modest establishment that sells local food and drinks. And so it is. This must be the number one most popular place in town. At the “off-peak” low wait time, we had to wait 45 minutes to be seated.
The tables are made from wooden wine boxes. The menu has dozens of choices. I tried the limpets with butter, peppers, garlic and lemon, served sizzling hot. They tasted good like mussels, but were chewier.
I got a very cool pork sausage (chorizo?) with red peppers, that was flambéed at the table. I mean flames were shooting up and I apologized to the lady sitting at the next table, shoulder to shoulder with me, but she was just as fascinated as I. It looked really cool, and tasted great with Gail’s slightly fruity white wine.
Speaking of wine, we both had the house wines. Gails was good, but warm, and mine was really good and strong.
Gail got the shrimp fried in olive oil with chili peppers. It was very good, nothing wrong. Fresh and firm... but missing the toasted pepper and garlic taste from the other night. Very hot peppers tonight, however. Yum!
Gail got a salad as well, and enjoyed it.
The food was good enough that for “dessert” I decided to try the shrimp with hot sauce. They were good, but I had to peel them.
Then I got the almond tart with an espresso macchiato, called "Café Garoto" here.
After a long day trip we had a little supper snack at ¾. That is the name of the place: "3/4." It is a corner bar, and the wine was good and the sandwiches excellent. And the painting behind the bar is very cool. They do art exhibits here, and people are allowed to smoke inside, so it has a real "Bohemian" feel to it.
I had the smoked ham with local cheese on crispy warm bread, while Gail had a simple cheese and bread. Simple and good.
In the city by the square is a tinned fish store. It is stocked with Portugese gold: tins of tuna and sardines, along with other stuff like shrimps, octopus and eel. They have sardine tins you can give for birthday presents, with the year you were born stamped on it (but the sardines were caught this year). However, if you were born before 1916 you are shit outta luck.
I have a morning coffee hangout, and I go there every day at six. He knows my order. Today the guy at the next table over has a beer. Either it is going to be a hard day, or he just got off the night shift.
We had two good breakfasts at Intz 48. I had a great toast with tomato, chorizo, and cheese, with a double espresso. They have the best coffee choices in town.
Our most unique dinner was in town at the Açores Grill Restaurant. So unique we ate there twice. You have a little BBQ at your table with a selection of meats (chicken, steak, pork chops, bacon, sausage) which you cook using a fondue fork. So it is kind of like a fondue.
On the side we had black beans, great fresh hand cut fries (two orders!) and special home made sauce. It filled us up. We had shots of the local regional pineapple and coffee liquors, a double order of fries and I had two beers, all for under $29 US. (€25)
It was a great deal, a good concept, and a fun place to eat. We returned a second night.
We ate carrot bread and coffee at Louvre Michaelense Café two blocks over from our hotel on the day that we went to the volcanoes. The cafe is very pretty inside, all glass display cases, and we were lucky to snag a table in one of the little framed-in window cubby areas. The service was beautiful just as the interior, and it felt kind of "old fashioned" and grand to eat breakfast here.
That same afternoon we stopped in the village of Sete Cidades for lunch at São Nicolau. It is small, it is local and so it is cheap. How cheap? The best "Local cow" big steak with fries, egg, and rice was €15. How could I not try it? And it tasted good. Our whole lunch with wine and water came in under €30.
The day we visited the hot springs at Furnas we stopped at the recommended restaurant Miroma
to try the famous Cozido das Caldeiras. That is a meat stew cooked underground in the volcanic hot springs. You can read a little more about it on the hot springs blog post, but to cut to the point:
It was fair at best, and I don’t need to try it again.
One afternoon we stopped for nice lunch on the harbor, at Cais da Sardinha. We split a bottle
of cold white wine from mainland Portugal, the Quinta do Pinto region, a three grape blend of Chardonnay, Fernão Pires and Arinto. That was good; creamy and coated the tongue yet tangy crisp at the same time.
I got limpets, Gail the hot garlic shrimps. It was nice to sit on the harbor and relax looking at the ships. These limpets however were chewy; overdone I think, really garlicy. But the wine helped bring out the brine. The shrimps were better, but the view was great.
Good view or good food? That is so often the choice.
Barnacles.
I first had barnacles when we visited Portugal back in 2014, and I never forgot the taste. And here was my chance to have them again!
So I got a “Dose de Cracas.”
Meanwhile, Gail, with all the fresh fish available, tuna to swordfish to moray eel to fish of the day, and none of it over €10… She orders a cheese sandwich.
We spent a whole €9,50 for a bottle of Montado white wine from Portugal.
The barnacles tasted like I remembered, the clean salty taste of the ocean mist. But these barnacles are different from the gooseneck “Percebes” I had before.
Those were long tubes, with a shell beak you removed, and they had “chew” to them, maybe like calamari.
These cracas are shorter, rock clinging shells. You get a small fork to dig them out. The meat is more squat like a Hershey’s kiss, not a tube. It is white, much more tender. But the taste is the same.
Because you are digging it out, you can’t help but get bits of the “beak shell” and seaweed in it, but that adds to the taste, just like the bugs and leaves add to the “terroir" of a good wine.
Consider it the “mareoir” of the cracas. And it was damn great. Highlight of my visit here.
And so I spent a happy hour: dig, dig... bite of barnacle, dip of wine.
Repeat.
Our last night's dinner was at Rotas da Ilha Verde, a vegetarian restaurant rated so highly that last Wednesday we had to make a reservation for this Monday at 21:00. That was the only opening.
It is officially A Very Cute Place. Only six tables, and the inside is cozy and decorated. The menus are printed on fabric and bound into a book. Our waitress was a charm, and she dropped by often just to chat.
We started with asparagus bruschetta, with cherry tomatoes, egg, curd cheese and coriander aioli. It had red peppercorns that burst with an amazing flavor.
I tried the basil gnocchi with dried tomato sauce and burrata cheese. It was a nice blend of flavors, well done and had a purple flower as an accent.
Gail had the eggplant cannelloni stuffed with soy, served with sweet potato chips and green salad. Her dish was very savory, and the eggplant firm. The chips were crunchy sweet.
I got a glass of full body red wine, Altano, an organic douro.
Gaul had the dry white, a Viognier and Verdelho blend. Both paired well.
For dessert I had the apple crumble with ricotta and lime mousse. Nice and crumbly.
An espresso finished it perfectly.
Gail the lemon meringue pie.
Our waitress is a hoot. She is not vegetarian either but like me appreciates good food. “I do not touch the food” she says. “My husband is the cook.”
The bill came in a little toy truck.
It was a great last dinner.