Praia Da Vitoria

After a silly wild and quite late night last night - this morning we set the alarm hoping for sunshine so we could enjoy the delights of going ashore to have a wander around Praia da Vitoria on the Azores island of Terceira.

We were more then ready for landfall time.  This ship doesnt offer much in the way of pleasant outdoor space and to be fair its been ridiculously windy so finding a sheltered spot is pretty much impossible.

Praia da Vitoria is a very pretty little town... not more than a large village really and the influx of even a small cruise ship such as the Bolette is very noticable.  I hope it is good for trade rather invasive...   The streets are laid with beautiful patterns made with cobbles and the buildings are mostly white with pretty red rooves and blue and yellow paintwork.

We walked down the main street towards the marina and what looked like a big park. The sun held out for us and once in the shelter of the town we were sheltered from the unrelenting wind.

To the side of the park lay a terraced walkway built into the side of the hill. It led to a monument standing at the top .. it looked interesting and with little else to do in this unspoilt sleepy little place we set off up the terracing. It was quite lovely,  lots of wildflowers and a deep purple Morning Glory spilling over worn stone steps winding side to side covering about 15 levels.

  There were little lizards darting in and out of the stone cracks. It wasn't hard going or as steep as it looked - (and that was my opinion so the munro walker in our party breezed it). The view from the top was splendid - right across the island - the highest point - the....... volcano in the distance partly obscured by low cloud.  It was windy on the top and the clouds scudded across the sky.  I'm still not sure if the statue at the top was Jesus or Mary but the view was amazing.  Coming down was actually harder than the climb up... the 'pretty' stone steps made for a uneven and potentially lethal descent but we took our time...

We had earned a coffee and we stopped at a little backstreet coffee shop before walking round the tiny backstreets back down to the harbour where we sat in the sun and had a beer.  Stunning outlook over the sea, boats bobbing about, lots of flower baskets swinging (more like hurtling) in the breeze.. (force 6 gale) it was very pleasant indeed.

It didnt take us long to explore the town so it was back to the ship where I thought I would swim... but it was too windy and we ended up sat in a pleasantly empty - amazingly quiet - observatory lounge reading our books.