Skip to main content

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.

Comments

  1. Jenny Russell11 July 2024 at 14:09

    Glad you're having a good time, even if the ship is a little small! Please do get in touch when you're back home - we're so looking forward to seeing you here in Sowerby. xxx

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...
1 comment
Read more

Isle of Bute

 Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors!   The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay.  The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank.  Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...
Post a Comment
Read more