Date: Saturday 06/07/2008
Weather: Mid 70’s and Overcast
We arrived in Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel Saturday morning. We checked into the beautiful Hotel Marina Alantico which overlooks the marina. The hotel is very modern and carries a nautical theme, including a teak deck overlooking the marina. The distinctive walkway from the hotel to the marina is in the shape of a sail. This city was by far the most modern of what we were to see in the Azores.
The waterfront in Ponta Delgada is undergoing a major reconstruction. They have a beautiful marina that was built in 1990, but they are already expanding it. The waterfront project is a major initiative that includes moving the original streets and town gate back to provide more room for a wide pedestrian walkway and a new waterfront outdoor arena for events and concerts.
Directly across from our hotel was the new municipal swimming pool which included a diving tower and diving pool. If we knew then that we would not be returning to Sao Miguel with Severance, Robyn would have been diving off that tower the first day!
The city is an interesting mix of 16th century and modern architecture. Our hotel was adjacent to the historic district with its narrow streets and cobblestones and very distinctive Portuguese architecture – buildings constructed of thick stone walls overlaid by stucco and painted a clean crisp white. Windows and doors were trimmed with basalt giving the distinctive black and white look we were to see on all the islands.
One of Ponta Delgada’s most distinctive features is its pavements, constructed from the only readily available building material: basalt. The effect is a black and white mosaic of cobbles, sometimes arranged to depict a feature of island life, such as a whale or a ship. We learned that the white was limestone, which was imported from mainland Portugal.
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