Back before the Middle Ages, folk tales and legends and myths in many lands spoke of a magical island somewhere to the West, an island inhabited by magical beings, an island which could appear or disappear at the will of its mysterious rulers.
The Garden of Fand, Hy-Brasil, Atlantis, and many more names were applied to these hidden lands whose existence was only revealed to certain travellers. Nor was it any accident that visions in so many European cultures of an idyllic after-life continue to be associated with lands beyond the ocean to the west. Just think of Aman, the blessed realm of undying life, and Eressea, the eternal home of the Elves, in Tolkien's detailed mythology which owes so much (but by no means all) to Nordic sources.
Once the age of exploration got underway in Portugal, it turned out that the magical island was more than one island and that it had actually been there and real all along -- the people of Europe just had to figure out exactly where to pin these islands on the map. And by the light of the early morning, here we are.
Some sources identify a Flemish ship as the first to "find" the islands, albeit accidentally during a particularly nasty storm. Other sources indicate the possibility of a Viking visitation even earlier. There are also hints at even earlier knowledge in some documents from the Gothic Age -- although those could easily have gotten muddled up with the legends which were older still.
Welcome to the Azores (pronounced "EH-zores" as the guide bluntly told us on my last visit). This island archipelago, perched atop the mid-Atlantic ridge and its assorted offshoots, is Portuguese territory and the islands are a self-governing autonomous region within Portugal (the other such region is the island of Madeira, much farther to the southeast and closer to Africa). There are nine main islands, spread over a sizable stretch of some 600 kilometres of ocean, from Corvo to Santa Maria, as this map shows.
Attributed without machine-readable information to Varp.
These islands may seem very distant and European to Canadians, but in fact the island of Flores is barely 500 kilometres farther from Newfoundland than Saõ Miguel is from Lisboa (Lisbon). It's not surprising, then, to find that Açoreans of all sorts have appeared and settled in widely diverse parts of Newfoundland and Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and more.
The islands are all volcanically formed, and many still have active volcanic features. Earthquakes caused by the simmering magma reservoirs many kilometres below the earth's surface are a daily occurrence. Rarer, and much more dangerous, are the massive earthquakes caused by the shifting of one or more of the three main fault systems which intersect here -- the boundaries separating the American, European, and Nubian continental plates. Much of what we saw on our tour had been built or rebuilt since a 1980 earthquake, rated at 7.2 on the Richter scale, which levelled large areas of buildings on all the islands. Large parts of the "historic" districts which we visited have had to be lovingly rebuilt since then.
Last time I came here, we landed at the largest city on Saõ Miguel, the city of Ponta Delgada. This time, our port of call is Praia da Vitoria on the east coast of Terceira. It's one of two major towns on the island, the other being Angra do Heroísmo on the south shore. Terceira's name is derived from the Portuguese word for "three" and there are several theories as to why it is known as the Third Island. Take your pick.
These names of the towns ("Beach of Victory" and "Bay of Heroism") are certainly curious and demand a little explanation. Our guide neatly dodged around the rather complex story of the "Liberal Wars," fought in 1832 to 1834 between traditionalist and liberal constitutionalist factions in Portugal's population. During these wars, the people of Terceira sided decisively with Queen Maria II, the leader of the liberal constitutionalists, and the cities of Angra and Praia were granted their honorary titles by her after the bloodshed was over and the dust had settled. With even that brief sketch of the complex story in hand, it's not surprising to find that the City Hall in Angra do Heroísmo features Maria's statue above the city's coat of arms on the pediment.
But more on that later. Praia da Vitoria has by far the most spacious harbour on the island, and this was our port of call. Looking out in the morning, when it was cloudy, I was still struck by the variety of greens from the fields and forests. The Azores have a damp climate, rising in Terceira to an average of over 60% of days including rain. We got very lucky indeed with a dry and mostly sunny day.
Just north of Praia da Vitoria is the Portuguese Air Force base at Lajes Field, a large-scale runway with a long-standing tenancy by the United States Air Force, now much reduced. Because of its size, Lajes is an important mid-Atlantic emergency landing point for long range flights over the ocean. It's also the civilian airport for the island, which makes Praia da Vitoria the transportation hub of Terceira, even though Angra do Heroísmo is the official capital.
Two things came through loud and clear from the guide on our "Highlights of Terceira" tour. The people of Terceira love their Roman Catholic faith and they love their festivals. A clear sign of both, surprisingly, is the collection of small, colourful chapels of the Holy Spirit found here and there around the island. Here are a couple of examples.
Whenever a community holds its annual festival of the Espírito Santo, there is bound to be a festive procession culminating in a priestly blessing inside the chapel -- after which the running of the bulls marks the beginning of the real fun. Everyone has heard of the once-a-year running of the bulls in Spain, but in Terceira it goes on all around much of the yearly calendar as each community on the island has to hold a major festival, and that festival has to include a running of the bulls! Raising bulls for these festivals, then, is a significant part of the island's agricultural sector which also features field crops, meat and dairy.
All this focus on the fun of festivals, according to our guide, is unique to Terceira. That certainly squared with my impressions from a visit to Ponta Delgada a year and a half ago, where the spirit seemed to be much more focused on getting ahead and sticking to business.
Our tour began, naturally, at Praia da Vitoria itself which is actually across the bay from the cargo port where we were docked. We didn't spend any time in the town, driving through and up onto the ridge north of the city to visit the viewpoint ("miradouro") with its towering statue of the Virgin Mary. Passengers of the ship could readily visit Praia da Vitoria on their own, thanks to free shuttle buses from the pier to the centre of town, laid on by the municipality.
We then set off across country to visit the old church and the chapel in the centre of the smaller town of Saõ Sebastiaõ. The church was decorated centuries ago with beautiful wall frescoes. Then, with shifts of taste and doctrine in later years, a bishop ordered that the frescoes be plastered over. They were rediscovered, quite by accident, when earthquakes jarred loose some of the plaster covering. Efforts have continued ever since then to try to recover what can still be saved of the paintings. What can be seen today is a bare fragment of the originals, and a mute testament to the folly of any one individual in any one time period knowing for certain what is "right" for all time. Due to the lack of light, I was unable to photograph any of the frescoes but here is the exterior of the church, and a couple of other pictures in the town centre.
We continued on to Angra, then, with superb roadside views of the twin islands offshore which now form a nature sanctuary, the Ilhéus das Cabras.
Coming into Angra do Heroísmo, we passed this dramatic sculpture which reminded us all of who's actually in charge around here, especially on festival days!
It's a long steep hill down into (or back up out of) the small historic district.
After the 1980 earthquake, this town centre was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and funds from UNESCO's budget helped considerably with the rebuilding.
Signature marks of Açorean architecture include contrasting colours of trim on the corners of buildings and frames of windows and doors. The Cathedral of Angra do Heroísmo exemplifies this, as well as the vivid choices of colours which set Terceira apart from the more sober dark trim favoured in, for instance, Saõ Miguel -- at least for public buildings.
Also popular are the iron grillwork balcony railings: always elaborate, but never (as far as I could see) pictorial. Moorish influence, perhaps?
The City Hall forms a backdrop to the square at the centre of town a pleasant "people place" with pavement formed from two-toned cobblestones similar to those one can see in Lisboa.
After an hour of walking time in the historic centre, we drove next to the monument of Dom Felipe IV on a hill art the back of town. The views here revealed the complex, rumpled geography of the site where Angra do Heroismo has grown, from the beautifully sheltered harbour in the lee of Monte Brasil to the other ups and downs, the various fortifications, and the visible outline of the Ilhéus das Cabras looming in the distance.
Well, enough of in-town life. We next drove up into the elevated plateau lands of the island's centre, really a series of large volcanic calderas which have eroded into each other through the ages. We saw some examples of traditional farm houses with the classic old chimney with its three points, said to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As our guide told us, the chimney had to be huge because the fire was huge. After all, the one fire had to serve to heat the house, cook the food, heat water for the laundry, and smoke the sausages!
Here, too, we got a good look at the distinctive patterner of Terceiran agriculture: the drystone walls.
The walls are certainly a familiar sight to anyone who, like me, has been in the Scottish highlands. Here, too, they serve a function of defining the limits of each property holder's land. Whether they contain field crops, dairy cattle or a bull ranch (we passed a number of those), the stone walls are everywhere.
At the east side of the island, we climbed a series of long hills up onto the high mountain of Serra do Cume, where we were able to look down on what our guide described as a "patchwork quilt" of farm fields, all divided up by stone walls. In the distance we saw the peaks lining the north and northwest shores of the island.
Then we drove around the other side of the mountain's summit -- and there was our little toy cruise ship, in the harbour far below us.
What shocked me the most at this point was the fact that the coach completed the entire descent from Serra do Cume and brought us back down onto the pier beside the ship in fifteen minutes flat. Like the streets in Angra do Heroismo, the road down the mountain saved time by just plunging down the hill in more or less a steep, straight line!
I could easily be tempted into a future and more extended visit to Terceira. It sounds like one of those festivals could be great fun, although I'm certainly too old to think of taking part in a bull running!
For now, though, it was time to say goodbye to Terceira and to Praia da Vitoria as our ship glided slowly out of the harbour, finally passing the statue of the Virgin Mary and the "land's end" at the island's easternmost tip before turning to the north-east for our next destination in three days' time.
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