Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

Traveling the world with Christina and I invariably involves two things: walking and eating. Obviously, we know which my favorite is, and there is much eating to be done in the Azores.

I have to admit, I was nervous going into this trip that the food wouldn’t be my favorite. My research indicated that while seafood would play a part in the cuisine, hearty, rustic soups and proteins were the primary focus.  Cozido, the most famous Azorean dish, is a perfect example and, on our second day in Sao Miguel, we headed out to Furnas to partake.

Both the town and the lake of Furnas are located in the crater of the most active of three volcanoes on Sao Miguel. In fact, due to the island population and the amount of volcanic activity at Furnas, it’s considered one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes. Along the shores of Lake Furnas you’ll find bubbling caldeiras where water boils in small pools as the volcano below vents. Each day local families and restaurants drop pots into the ground using the natural heat and boiling water to cook the famous dish they call cozido. A typical pot will contain large cuts of pork, beef, chicken, blood sausage, and various veggies including potatoes, carrots, cabbage and collard greens. These ingredients are simply thrown in with a little broth and salt, then left to cook for six hours in the steaming ground.

If there is such a thing as a tourist trap in the Azores, this is it. The cozido is ready and served at the local restaurants at exactly 1pm and our reservations were made far in advance for a table at Tony’s. Before you eat, you have the chance to observe the pots being pulled in and out of the ground before they are whisked away to their respective establishments to be served. The men performing the action politely pause as they lift the pot smiling for pictures. The whole ordeal was ready-made for massive buses of tourists and tour groups but, here’s the thing, there was nobody there. I jumped up to take my pictures of our lunch being pulled from the ground with only maybe a dozen other folks. This was the moment I realized just how few people have experienced the Azores. The few companies that even offer tours in the Azores don’t pack big buses. They use small vans of six to eight people. This was the only time on our entire trip we saw other people we definitively could identify as tourists.

But I digress, back to the food. Sitting down to lunch the cozido came out as a platter for 2 and I nervously dished up thinking perhaps I should have ordered something else as well (again, still thinking “tourist trap”). I could not have been more wrong. Christina and I devoured every bit of that platter and it was absolutely magic. The way it all came together marinating in its own juices, slowly cooking until each piece of meat was fall-off-the-bone tender. Cozido was truly exceptional, reminding us both of a holiday feast as we wished our families were there to join us.

Back in Ponta Delgada, Christina and I continued the foodie experience with our third visit in as many days to a little family joint called Tasca. Christina and I fell in love with Tasca where they served “snack” sized plates of local Azorean dishes from limpets (a local sea snail that eats like a clam) to a Portuguese sandwich (ham, steak, and sausage sandwich smothered in cheese and tomato sauce). To give you an idea of just how much we loved this place, in our previous eight weeks of travel in Europe, we have repeated a restaurant on only one other occasion before Tasca. After three days, we had eaten our way through almost the entire menu, including desserts.

Desserts proved to be another unexpected delight of the Azores, and we had more than our share. On one afternoon we embarrassed ourselves in a local pastry shop, stopping just shy of saying, “give us one of everything.” The woman helping take our order quickly gave way to the pastry chef himself, filling our box as he answered “what’s in this one?” over and over. The chef patiently explained to us the Azorean love of eggs and sugar, then just for good measure I asked him to add any pastry he deemed critical for us to try. As he handed over our box, which would feed a small office party, I assured him we would not eat them all at once. He replied that surely we couldn’t without getting sick. They didn’t last 24 hours.

Lest all of this eating go to our heads, or more accurately our waist lines, we also made sure to walk it off. Nowhere else in the world do cultures depend so heavily on automobiles as in America, so whether we’re visiting a great European city or exploring the great outdoors, walking shoes are a must. Setting out on a walk through an unexplored new corner of the globe is a pure joy for Christina and me. Our trip to the Azores proved to be one of our more active, averaging over eight miles of walking per day.

In Furnas we walked the gardens of Parque Terra Nostra, and for our last full day in Sao Miguel we headed out to Sete Cidades. Sete Cidades is set inside another of Sao Miguel’s volcanic craters and sits along the shore of two neighboring lakes. The lakes are surrounded by legend because of their distinct colors with one lake being blue and the other green. For the first time on our trip, the weather prevented us from getting the most out of our experience, but we hiked on none the less. As we climbed the ridge of the crater, we quickly reached the cloud level and instead of sweeping views of the lake below, we watched as the clouds rolled over the ridges. Making the most of it we “mooed” at all the cows, clinging perilously to the hillsides like mountain goats, and laughed as they stared at us imagining we were the first “dumb Americans” they’d had the pleasure of meeting. After a quick picnic lunch of bread and a local wheel of soft cheese, we conceded to the weather and walked back down the hill.

For our final night in Sao Miguel we headed out of town to a small village on the coast to stay at Quinta do Mar. This little B&B run by two men who were expats from England could not have been a more perfect setting to end our trip. The villa grounds were immaculate and the service was beyond five-star, but it was the bed that words can’t even do justice. This was the most