Ponta Del-Da-Da

Yesterday was our very first shore day, at Ponta Delgada (or, rather, Ponta Del-da-da, since whenever we said “Ponta Delgada”, Torsten would chime in with “Dada” and point at Ingo). We docked around 9 am, and took a bit of time to get ready, since our stateroom balcony faced the dock, and Torsten was fascinated by the shuttle buses outside – he kept saying “bus”.

The shuttle took us to the end of the pier, as we were docked past the industrial port and pedestrians weren’t allowed to wander around there at will. We then put Torsten into his knapsack carrier, and made our way to the tourist information centre, along the promenade by the ocean. It wasn’t a very large office, and there weren’t any brochures, so we just picked up a map and started following the walking tour that I’d photocopied out of our Azores travel book.

It turned out to be a lovely walking tour – we saw the old city gates, which were where the harbour used to be (a lot of land has been reclaimed), and the houses with lookout posts on the roof, where servants watched for ships coming in. We saw the church of Sao Sebastian, which is a nice little church with a strange mix of Baroque and Romanesque style. The verger seemed to like us a lot – possibly because we comported ourselves as people should in a church, rather than like obnoxious tourists. He gave us a thumbs up when we left.

Ponta Delgada is a nice town, with narrow streets and crazy traffic (although not as crazy as a larger city like, say, Rome or Paris). It has a lot of squares where pedestrians can walk around, and a lot of beautiful parks and gardens. In the Praca 5, which is the main square where they hold festivals, we let Torsten out of the knapsack so he could run around. He headed straight for the carousel, and Ingo took him on twice – he loved it, and cried when we wouldn’t let him keep going for rides. He was only distracted by a flock of pigeons, and he promptly singled one from the pack and started following it till it flew away. On the square was a lime-sherbet coloured building that was once the main hospital, but is now a maternity hospital, and also a convent which contained a sacred statue, the Ecce Homo. Since tourists were pouring in and out of the convent, we decided not to go in.

Continuing on, we passed by a number of other churches, and walked down the small pedestrian road, where shops sold a variety of consumer goods. Actually apart from the Sao Sebastian church (mentioned above) we didn’t go into any of the buildings; Torsten was a bit tired and cranky, and we thought it would be better just to wander around. We came to a garden dedicated to Anthero de Quental, a poet, with a nice monument, a small expanse of grass cut by paths, and a fountain. Torsten had a good time running around there, and discovered that tree bark feels neat.

Then it was lunch time, and we found a place called the Terrace Café, attached to the Hotel Talisman. The service was slow, but we expected that – we are, after all, in Europe, where people linger over their food. We ordered a blood sausage with pineapples (presumably Azores pineapples – yum), limpets, and squid with olive oil and garlic. I wasn’t that keen on the blood sausage, finding it a bit peppery, but the limpets and squid were outstanding. By the time we were done, it was almost time to get back to the ship. However, we had promised Brady’s that we’d send them a postcard from the Azores, so we popped into a souvenir shop, purchased a couple of postcards (we’d purchased 2 stamps from a machine earlier that day), realized that we didn’t have a pen, bought a pen, dashed off the postcards, and walked briskly back to the shuttle bus pickup point. We were just in time.

Torsten actually fell asleep in the knapsack, leaning his head on my hand, so we took him out of the knapsack, and he slept through the shuttle ride back to the boat, through the security check, and for an hour or so after we got back to the cabin – hurrah! After that, he woke up full of vim and vigour, and tore around the ship for a while, making friends.

Today is a sea day, and tomorrow is Lisbon, and the start of many shore days!