Category: Cities/Towns
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Angra do Heroísmo Harbor
Terceira, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) We drove west along Terceira’s southern coastal road. The scenery became increasingly impressive all along the way. Finally we turned a corner and noticed a spit of land jutting outward from the island across the pastoral landscape. This marked Monte Brasil, the volcanic caldera at Angra do Heroísmo…
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Angra do Heroísmo
Terceira, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Angra do Heroísmo (map) has been important to Portuguese history since the 16th Century. Traditionally it provided a convenient central landing point in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Here, mariners could rest, resupply and shelter their ships as they plied the trade routes between Europe, Africa and…
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Porto Martins
Terceira, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Porto Martins lies due south of Praia do Vitória along Terceira’s eastern shore (map). It is a scenic fishing village and summer resorts with a popular natural swimming pool at the waterline. We stopped where land met water. This was the location of the swimming hole set among…
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Praia da Vitória
Terceira, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) The town of Praia da Vitória (“Victory Beach”) formed around a natural harbor on Terceira’s eastern coastline (map). It was named in tribute to a victory over Spanish forces that took place in 1581 when the Portuguese thwarted an invasion by releasing cattle onto a nearby beach. This…
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Miscellaneous Scenery of São Miguel
São Miguel, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) This page focuses on miscellaneous scenery throughout São Miguel. We took lots of photographs as we drove throughout the central and eastern portions of the island. However there weren’t enough photos to justify an individual page for each of the locations shown below. Caloura The picturesque town…
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Furnas Scenery
São Miguel, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Furnas is a Portuguese word that is similar to its English cognate “Furnace.” In this case it applies to a town and a region in a broad interior valley on the eastern side of São Miguel. Furnas rests in a caldera basin surrounded by mountains on all…
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Vila Franca do Campo
São Miguel, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Vila Franca do Campo sits about midway along São Miguel’s southern coast (map). It served as the first capital city of São Miguel until it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1552. Now the capital is located in Ponta Delgada. Vila Franca do Campo has a wonderfully…
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Ponta Delgada Streets
São Miguel, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Most of the Azores seemed rather quiet and sparsely populated. Typically we encountered villages set amongst rolling farmland. However, Ponta Delgada on São Miguel’s southwestern coast, came closest to be being a city (map). Its population approached nearly seventy thousand people. So it served as both the…
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Ponta Delgada Scenes
São Miguel, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Ponta Delgada is the capital of the Azores and its most populous city. It hugs São Miguel’s southwestern coast (map). These old “City Gates” or Portas da Cidade probably personifies Ponta Delgada more than any other image. They dated back to the 18th Century. Back then the…
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São Roque do Pico
Pico, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) São Roque do Pico (map) appeared in the distance from the cross-island road. This photograph gives a good perspective of the steep descent from the interior. Then, down below, towns could be observed on the relatively flat coastal plain. Of course, this placement also offered excellent oceanfront access.…