Today was a low key day spent packing, snoozing and getting ready for the trip home. I have a 4:15 am pickup Azores time and don’t get home until after midnight Ottawa time, so it’s going to be a long day. The pictures throughout this post are from a walk through a botanical garden I did this afternoon just for visual interest.
I did go for a walk this morning, and covered some of the same territory that we did yesterday and went to some of the more modern areas of the downtown which were really not that interesting. I also stopped at the place we started our day on the food tour.
I have had no language issues on this whole trip as thankfully Portuguese students are taught English as well as Portuguese and so most speak both. Always nice to not have to use Google Translate on every interaction! This morning however, I ordered a hot black tea with cold milk. If you don’t order the milk cold, it comes warmed like they use in special coffees. Some may like their milk in tea warmed but I sure don’t. I had a sense that the woman who took my order didn’t really get what I said, and repeated it. Off she went. What I got was an iced latte. Haha, oh well, it’s the only issue I’ve had on the whole trip.
I had been told about a botanical garden just 5 minutes from our hotel so I headed off to explore it. It was a lovely, calm, green place on a Sunday afternoon. It is called Jardim Botanico Antonio Borges (Antonio Borges Garden in English) and it’s a public park. As you can imagine, the garden was started by Antonio Borges, who was interested in botany and imported several hundred exotic species of plants to transform his property into this wonderful botanical garden. His family handed the property over to the city upon his death so that it could be open to the public.
There are paths throughout the exotic plants and ponds and a stream and a large flat grassed area which is used as a sports field. And ducks, roosters and lots of chickens and roosters. And a bridge made from volcanic rock which is the only native stone on the island.
There is also a children’s play area and a cute little cafe which had closed by the time I got there but there were lots of people wandering the grounds and enjoying the day. Oh, and I saw two people walking their rabbits on leashes!
I have really enjoyed this trip to Portugal and the Azores. ( which btw, I have been told is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable by most, but apparently there is some discussion about that as not all agree).
Friends and family had been raving about Portugal for ages and I’m so glad I finally got back to Europe and got to experience it as well.
I would absolutely encourage people to make the trip to the Azores whether you’re going to mainland Portugal or not. It’s beautiful, and the weather is really moderate and even when there’s a cruise ship in town, it wasn’t crazy busy anywhere. Prices are reasonable and the food is out of this world, especially the pastries. (Have I mentioned the pastries?) I would suggest renting a car for at least some of the time here though and staying for more than just 3 nights. I really didn’t get to begin to see this beautiful island, never mind others in the archipelago.
I regret I didn’t get to do any hiking or see the waterfalls or the north east side of the island which looks gorgeous from pics I’ve seen. Can’t do everything, I guess.
Wingbuddy’s agents on the ground throughout all did a good job of logistics for the most part and getting us safely and with little confusion from point A to point B. Their communications was ok, although not always complete. Our bus driver, Elizabeth, who safely and without much ado got us through some incredibly steep and narrow roads in the Cape area as well as in the Douro.
As I mentioned before, I will provide some feedback to Wingbuddy about some of the stops as I think our time could have been better spent having more time at some of the other spots. The Ironman in Cascais really messed up our schedule and so we ended up with only 1.5 hours (including grabbing lunch at the notoriously slow restaurants) in Sintra instead of half a day, and that meant we got to see very little of the really interesting castles, etc there. This should have been one of the highlights and it definitely wasn’t.
And I’m not really happy about the flights that Wingbuddy booked for me. I’m sure they book the absolute cheapest flights which are not necessarily the most passenger friendly. I didn’t find out til too late that Azores Airlines flies from Azores to Montreal direct but instead I’m routed 2.5 hours back to Lisbon and then 8 hours to Toronto, requiring me to leave the hotel at 4:15 am and not getting in to Ottawa until after midnight. One of the couples leaves tomorrow afternoon at 2:30ish and gets into Montreal by 8 pm! Two other couples in my group are also on the same flights and they tried to get Wingbuddy to at least change the flights from Toronto to Ottawa as we have a 4 hour layover and there are two earlier flights and they were told by Wingbuddy that Air Canada’s system won’t let them change it. Ha! OK, rant over. So thinking this will most likely be the last chance Wingbuddy gets.
By the way, remember Nazare? When we were there, the waves were quite small, even though the red flags were up. But in the last few days, thanks to Meta’s algorithms I’ve started getting videos from Nazare of the increasing wave action as the winter wave season is upon them. I even got this wave forecast post indicating the forecast height of the waves and they’re expecting 12 foot waves in the next couple of days.
As always, thanks for coming along on this adventure. Watch for painted toes in the new year for an exciting adventure, not the Caribbean!
