Ponta Delgado

Early start to be ready to leave on our tour of the island at 8.30. Wonderful guide full of facts about the Azores - currently en route back to the port (2.45) before we sail at 4pm.

We have seen so many things - the town of Ribero Grande with the beautiful Church of Mercy, the viewpoint at San Iria, the largest tea plantation on the island and the wonderful thermal springs at Furnas. We ate lunch cooked in an aluminium pot buried in the thermal earth known as Cozida - pork belly, chicken, cabbage, kale, carrots, potato, sweet potato, taro (type of yam), blood sausage and spicy sausage - all cooked for 6-7 hours buried in the earth. Delicious but filling.

Main crops are pineapple and passionfruit.

Wonderful place and one I want to return to in-the future