11/12 – Ponta Delgada–Lagoa do Fogo to Ribeira Grande

…Down, down, down we drive, stopping at yet another vista point, this one overlooking the Ribeira Grande coast of the island…

…then continuing down on the narrow lanes of the mountain, passing beautiful hydrangeas – just past their peak -  planted everywhere alongside the road

Traffic is picking up coming towards, with lots of cars (that don’t like to stay on their own side) and a bus.  Yikes!  We want to make a stop at the Caldeira Velha, a thermal spring where you can walk to the waterfall and swim in the hot pools if you want, but as we approach we see it is absolutely packed.  To the gills.  There must be a 100 cars here and a huge bus – which btw is parked in the right lane, completely blocking it, making cars (including us) back up to let other vehicles come up the hill on the left, before we can proceed down – in the left lane.  No stopping here for us!

We figure we’ll just head down to Ribeira Grande, take our time in the supermarket, then find one of the restaurants we’ve scoped out for lunch.

Continuing on down the other side of the mountain, we look out the window and spot the thickest rainbow we’ve ever seen arching over Ribeira Grande coastline.

Wow!  Once we hit Ribeira Grande, we know exactly where we are going to the supermarket, even without TIM, although he does help as a back up. It’s Sunday, so the place is jam packed. We pull into the one space we see which is right behind this big junky pick up that hasn’t pulled all the way up into the handicap space it is using.  Ed pulls in as tight as he can and bumps the bumper into the truck – lightly – barely a touch.  The trucks lights flash, and a guy gets out and comes and looks at the truck and says something nasty to us (it was all in the attitude, since it was also all in Portuguese). What?  We bumped your nasty truck – oh and btw only your trailer hitch – with our nice new Mazda and you’re dissing us? Puleease.

At any rate, we blow him off and head into the store. But after wandering around a bit, we realize we really don’t need or want anything else for the cabin.  Normally we’d buy beer and vinho verde and snacks, but we’ve got tons of food – and we sure don’t need any alcohol since the lounge keeps us topped up at night (and now our restaurant guys are bringing us beer and wine too!). 

So, we come back out empty handed and sit in the car to reconnoiter.  TIM can’t find most of the restaurants I’ve picked out – it’s weird, he’s been so good everywhere else, but here, he’s just a little lost.  Google maps would work, but we’re not paying $10 just for that data.  So we just head into town on the main road and figure it out ourselves.

The main road is a typical narrow little lane hemmed in on either side with 2 and 3 story houses and buildings, and fortunately one-way – thank God, it is sort of stressful just navigating the parked cars and people walking around – let alone if cars were coming in the other direction.  We continue on a ways, not really seeing any restaurants or much of anything really.  We cross over the river and decide to head down to the water, because Ed had found a restaurant that was right on the oceanfront.  Luckily we see directional signs for the Piscina and the restaurants, so we turn down what ends up being the road where the cathedral is located, and one that dead ends at the ocean with a sign pointing us to Alabote, the restaurant Ed researched.  Perfect.

There is actually a parking space right in front of the restaurant, but as it is still before noon, it is closed up tight.  We dump the car and walk down to the water to hang out and take some pictures looking down the coast.

As we have plenty of time, we walk up to the cathedral to take a look. It is a beautiful old church, in the stark white and black block architecture for which the island is known, standing tall up above us.  There is hardly anyone around, and it is sort of nice and peaceful in the square below, so we decide to hang out here for a bit to waste some time.

The serenity doesn’t last long, as suddenly a horde of Aida ship tourists appear above us on the plaza in front of the church.  They stand there taking photos, then come down the stairs listening to their guide.  We watch them, prepared to run back to the restaurant if they show any indication of heading in that direction. But, fortunately for us, they turn in the opposite direction, and we can relax here a bit more.  Since they all seemed so enamored with the view from the church, we climb the stairs to see what the hub-bub was about and take a couple of good shots across the city. 

Nice, but after our morning views, it doesn’t quite compare.  Deciding that enough time had passed, we walked back down to the restaurant, passing this startling pretty building, apparently renovated using a facade of tile blocks.  It’s really neat looking, enough so that we snap a pix, just for future reference.

Back at Alabote, the doors are still not open and we see no activity in the windows.  Darn it, are we being shut out again?  Sitting on the wall by our car, across from Alabote, we revert back to plan B, which is to look at TIM and try to figure out where these other restaurants are located.  You’d think it would be easy, but in these warrens of little streets, it just isn’t so simple.  We’ve got our game plan, and as we are getting  up to leave, I notice the door is open.  Yay!

Tentatively entering, we look around an open, deserted bar/dining area (which is what we saw from the windows) and spy a sign pointing to the restaurant.  Turns out the restaurant is in the back of the building, which is why we didn’t see any signs of life earlier.  We follow the signs and end up in a lovely little dining area right off the patio.  We are the first customers and get seated at a lovely table by the window.

The menu is fantastic, making it hard to choose. After ordering our beer and wine, and letting the waitress talk us into the bread and cheese (local cheese) at 3 Euro 50 coperto, we end up deciding on the Sopa de Peixe (fish soup) and Polvo Ala Bote (Octopus with sweet potatoes) for Ed and the Atum Braseado (smoked Tuna) for me.

Ok Gaby – stop reading here!  I’m going to wax prolific about the food.  The Portuguese bread was fantastic, light and airy, but with a still crusty crisp crust.  The octopus was enormous, and perfectly cooked and seasoned.  But the tuna. Oh the tuna.  I had no idea what to expect, and when the waitress laid the wooden paddle with the tin tray of tuna I had my doubts. But one bite and I was in love. They sliced the tuna so thin – we’ve no idea how, almost like a sushi slice –

- then smoked it, but I’m going to say they also broiled it, because there were these little crusty places that crunched in your mouth perfectly.  It was served with diced onion and celery on top, and drizzled with olive oil. I just wanted to stuff my face, but the plate was deceptively huge, and we ended up leaving some behind. Absolutely yummy!

By the time we had finished lunch, the restaurant was packed.  And the funny thing is that there were only 2 tables (including ours) that did not have kids.  I want to know if Alabote means with children!  Regardless though, definitely the right move, and definitely the right move coming early!

Back in the car, we decide there isn’t much else to do.  All the sights will take too long to drive to, so we decide to just head back to Ponta Delgada and wander around.  We make it back easily enough (the directional sign posting is wonderful here), and after a little brouhaha about why we didn’t hike down to Lagoa do Fogo, we leave the car where we found it, and wander around town. 

We hit the back streets, trying to avoid the crowds, but even though the guy at the rental agency said there are plenty of cafes in the back streets for a drink, we found exactly none!  Pooh.  We did find a great building for photos – haven’t a clue what it is, but it is neat looking.

Heading back down the main avenue, we stop into the souvenir store – which has grown exponentially btw – looking for ceramic tiles with numbers and letters.  We know we’ll never find them (even though the little town of Lagoa is the pottery center for the region), but we’ll give it a shot.  After searching the whole store front to back, we are on the last aisle walking out and lo and behold!  The numbers – and more importantly – letters!  Yes! Success.  Even better still, they are cheap.  We are all in – and grab our 1 and D and also 2 end pieces to round out the pretty design.  How exciting.  Now we can’t wait to get back to fashion some sort of backing and hang our new house numbers up.

Happily bouncing out the door with our purchase, we head down to the waterfront along the pier, but decide to go to the right of the pier building to try a cafe/restaurant over there for drinks. We also go to Doris Bar (or once the bowling alley) on the left side of the pier building, but it is always crazy busy over there and we feel like a change.  Turns out to be a good move, as there is plenty of seating, we’re under a loggia type roof (which is a bonus when it starts raining about 15 minutes after we arrive) and the drinks turn out to be incredibly reasonable.  Oh, and the wifi was really good too.  The only disappointment is that both here and at lunch, I can’t get just one glass of Vinho Verde, you have to order a whole bottle.  What’s with that?  Very weird, particularly when in Asheville, NC, there are a multitude of places (including Banks Ave) where you can get a single glass of vinho verde.  Not that the vinho branco (white wine) wasn’t good, it was, just odd about the vinho verde.

Ending our happy day, we slowly walk back aboard, knowing this is the last day our feet will touch the ground for 6 days.  Not to say we aren’t looking forward to the sea days, we are.  It is still just one of those odd feelings when you leave your last port before a crossing – that longing to be on land, but yet the same desire to be at sea.

Of course, any sadness disappears completely when we return to our cabin to find Jose has come through and we have champagne and more chocolate covered strawberries to kick off our sailaway and crossing. Thank you to our favorite Head Waiter. (I won’t mention that the tray was actually delivered to our next door neighbors with a note that had our cabin number on it. They were nice enough to give it to us, as we bet there would be others who might keep it for themselves!)