Lazy times in Angra

July 27, 2008 Sunday
It is the day after my birthday and we are just laying around, taking it easy. Yesterday we hiked around the city again.
Here is a shot of the botanical garden - it is much bigger than this, but this gives an idea.

Here is yet another sidewalk mosaic. Nearly all the downtown sidewalks are like this and the patterns are all different - the workers get to be artisans. Cool huh?

You'll remember that I mentioned the clarity of the water. Here you can see some rocks below the surface, giving a hint of that clarity.

We hiked over to the fort on the East side of the harbor. It has been converted to a parador, but they let you explore the old parts.

Then I made a panoramic shot of the West side of the harbor, showing the other fort all along the waterfront. Double-click to make it bigger.

After seeing the fort, we walked around shopping (or looking at things). We passed through a neighborhood where there were all the car agencies. Nearly every Japanese, Korean, and European make was represented, but only Ford from the US. Most of the cars were smaller than the same brand in the US. I wish we could buy them there!

This is a pretty big city. We were amazed at the number of boutiques and sporting clothing stores. In the evening, we went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. A good time was had by all and I got everything that I wanted.

The Azores are a terrific place to have a vacation. It could cost a bit to get here because you probably would need to fly into Lisbon and then catch a hop to one of the islands. Then there are ferries to inexpensively move between islands. Hotels are very reasonable, especially if you don't need the 5 star kind. Food is pretty cheap - about 10-12 Euros each for a dinner - wine is more. You can find a fixed price meal with drinks and dessert for 5 to 7 Euros. Hamburgers and sandwiches are around 3 - 4 Euros. Car rentals - 30 Euros per day - fuel same as the US. This is probably one of the cheapest places in all Europe and virtually no crime or other tourist hassles. Almost everyone speaks English.

It can be noisy in the marina. There are two big churches that ring bells on the hour and half-hour. Then someone shoots off rockets all through the day at random times, continuing right up to midnight. Not the fireworks kind of rockets; the kind that go up in the sky and make a big bang. Then there are a few goats and roosters for the domestic touch. And then the local ducks and geese pick the most inopportune times to express themselves under our window.

Andi was feeding some stale bread to the ducks yesterday and started a fish feeding frenzy. There are so many fish in the marina that the ducks lost most of the bread to the swarming fish. There were at least 10 varieties including some big ones who would shoot up from the deep and eat one of the small fry. That caused a shock wave to run through the swarm, but then the fish returned to the feeding again. Never seen anything like it. It takes me a long time to get to the boat because I fish-watch all the way down the docks.