Traveling to the Azores: Day 1

Hello everyone and welcome back,

To be honest, I had never heard of the Azores before. It wasn’t until I was looking at the getaway section on Groupon.com that I stumbled upon Azores Getaway Tours. I clicked on the link and I was truly in love at what I saw: mountains, beaches, volcanoes, and cheese? I am in! As I researched more, I wanted to go to Terceira Island in the Azores because it was a bit smaller than the capital island of São Miguel.  Plus, I wanted to see Angra do Heroísmo, which is a World Heritage site.  For a little more history on the Azores and Terceira Island please check out: Azores: the Hidden Gem of the Atlantic.

The Groupon deal included flights and accommodations for $599 USD.  This included our flights to and from Boston, hotel stay, and pick-up/drop-off at the airport. When we first booked our trip their were no direct flights from Orlando, Florida so we had to book a flight from Orlando to Boston to board our flight to Azores Airlines.  (Side note there are no other direct flight to the Azores, aside from Boston, from the United States unless you fly to Madrid or Lisbon first)  The flight took roughly four and a half hours from Boston to Terciera Island. Although the seats were a bit cramped, the food we were served was fantastic and we had a great service.   My tip for you if you use Azores Airlines (formally SATA airlines) would be to spend the extra $40 on extra legroom, especially if you are a tall person.

Our plane took off from Boston at 10 p.m EST and arrived at Terceira Island around 7 a.m GMT.  Although the day was a bit cloudy it was a beautiful sight. Since there was no tarmac we used stairs to deplane. I always find it fascinating to stand next to these huge planes.

Our Terceira Island tour package was booked with Azores Getaway Tours who took us to our destination.  The agency picks you up from the airport in a tour bus, takes your bags, give you a pamphlet with all of the activities you can do on the island.  This is extremely useful if you really don’t know much about the island and if you like to tour the island on your own.  So I found it very helpful for someone who hasn’t been to the islands before.

We then arrived to our beautiful hotel called the Terceira Mar Hotel in Angra do Heroísmo.  Angra do Heroísmo is a world heritage site, which means that this city is recognized as being of outstanding international importance.  This means that it this city is under special production as nominated to the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO.

The views from this hotel are beautiful.  The one thing I liked about this hotel was the fact that no matter what room you reside in, you will always have a view of the pool deck and the ocean.  Every morning they had an amazing breakfast spread of local cheeses, eggs, bacon and delicious yogurt.  And may I say the views for breakfast were superb!

Oh and of course I cannot forget the beautiful flowers.  Everywhere you walked, you saw beautiful flowers!

After we arrived to our destination we were pretty tired, however since our room wasn’t ready,  we did what we do best, we explored.  If you ever stay in this hotel and are looking for a place to buy essentials (water, bread, etc.) no need to worry.  There is a small convince store where you can buy small essentials for your trip that was a 5 minute walk away.  If you are looking for a much larger food purchase, you just walk about 15 minutes up the street towards down town Angra do Heroísmo and you will find a bigger store.   After we got our room, we were able to settle down and found a place to have dinner. There are several places to eat around the hotel so don’t worry.   We stopped at Hotel Caracol to eat their buffet.  The food was incredible! We only paid  $19 per person for a full buffet with complimentary wine.  Something else that was interesting about this trip was the fact that you didn’t have to spend a lot of money to get good food and/or services.  Which is fantastic for those who are on a budget and looking for an adventure.

Good news for all our foodies out there, there are several places to eat delicious food near the hotels.  You will find everything from local pork, beef, chicken and fish.  So you don’t have to look far if you are looking for a culinary adventure. 🙂

If you would like to check out our first day adventures, click on the video below to follow us on our day one 😉  Come back for day 2!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoDx1ow-mp0&w=560&h=315]

Thanks for reading everyone!

Don’t forget to travel!

Brizzy