After two smooth days of cruising from the mainland, the Prinsendam docked at this remote archipelago. As usual, we didn’t know quite what to expect. What we found was a small town with aspirations for tourism. They had quite a nice tourist port ready for us with stores, cafes, and very easy access to the town.
We did not take an excursion, but strolled into town. The center of town was quite small and fairly attractive. Since Ponta Delgada was to be the last Euro port on the trip, we were ready to spend what Euros we had. We made our way to the outdoor (covered, but open) produce market where Adele managed to locate the few stores selling tourist items and made some investments.
We wandered the streets and found more shops and some interesting churches. One of the attractive features of the town was the sidewalks paved with black and white cobbles in interesting shapes and swirls.
The last stop before the ship was a genuine, modern, shopping mall. It was filled with stores offering high fashion at high prices, so we didn’t buy anything, although Adele tried to find a book about bridge (the card game) in Portuguese. I don’t know what she would have done with it, but it was worth a try.
The sail away was very nice as we cruised along the rocky cliffs of the coastline while eating dinner. A bit of weather was setting in, so we had high waves and alternating sunshine, rain, and fog.