The new allure of the Azores

I was beginning to see this archipelago from the point of view of a seafarer — as being in the middle of everywhere, little resting pillows close to three continents: 1,000 miles from Europe; 1,000 miles from Africa; and 2,000 miles from North America. In the late 1400s, Portuguese and Spanish explorers tied down here and filled their holds, before pushing off to the New World. Pirates lurked near shore. These islands were the heart of transatlantic navigation.

Today, yachties from all over still drop anchor in Faial’s marina. It ranks fourth in the world for the number of boats in it. Splashed on marina walls are murals painted by crews, a Hollywood Boulevard for sailors. And just beyond the hundreds of masts and clanging halyards, across the channel, is Pico Mountain, the highest peak in Portugal, at 7,713 feet. And I have a perfect view of it from this side of the channel, in Faial’s main town of Horta, at Pousada Santa Cruz.

The two-story luxury hotel is housed in a 16th-century fortress that was originally built to protect the island from Moorish pirates. From my balcony, I watch new boats sail into the Horta marina. Cannons still point toward the sea, only now, below them, ironically, is an invitation: a swimming pool.

The sun shines, and I wander the gray and white basalt sidewalks, decorated with fanciful motifs. Flower boxes hang from iron balconies. I turn in and out of side streets, up hills, passing not the typical Portuguese whitewashed or stone houses with red roofed tiles (although those are there, too), but art deco quirk, like the sea-foam-green International Bar. Inside, mirrors are etched with 1920s art: flappers. A building called “Amor da Patria” has pretty blue and white hydrangea carvings decorating its cornice.

I trek uphill to the cable houses. In these buildings in the 1920s and until World War II, Britain, the United States and Germany set up operations to transmit cables overseas. The Azores was the hub for flights, too. In 1939, Pan American Airways stopped to refuel its sea planes in Horta on its new routes from the East Coast to Europe.

“We are a small town, a small place in the middle of the ocean,” says José Henrique Gonçalves Azevedo. “But we are connected because of our situation.” José’s grandfather opened Peter Café Sport on Christmas Day 1918. It is the watering hole of the yachtie world. José and I walk upstairs, away from the noise of the smoky café and bar, and into the Scrimshaw Museum with its many glass cases.

Accomplished sailors such as Sir Francis Chichester, Joshua Slocum, Eric Tabarly and Bernard Moitessier have stopped in, José tells me, pointing to their likenesses painted on whales’ teeth. Even Jacques Cous-teau has come.

“When Chichester was asked what he thought about when he was solo at sea, he said, ‘my wife, my son and my good friend Peter on Faial,’” explains José of his father whose nickname was Peter. Peter Café isn’t just a bar, or even a place to rent a bike or kayak (which they do), explains José, who now runs the place. It’s a symbol, a welcome mat for those making the transatlantic crossing.

The next morning I take a little boat journey of my own. I motor off in a high-speed catamaran ferry to São Jorge, with about 30 other passengers and 20 surfboards — all of which are loaded onto the second deck of the boat with a casualness that only happens in places without too many lawyers. As the surfboards twirl in mid-air, held by a shoelace, we tourists run for cover, sleep still in our eyes.

In two hours, the harbor town of Velas comes into focus. It’s on the south coast of the skinny, 5-mile-wide and 35-mile-long São Jorge. António Pedroso, who owns Casa do António, a B&B that fronts the harbor in Old Velas, also happens to be an island guide. He meets me at the ferry terminal. We walk to the pedestrian boulevard of Alameda Francisco Lacerda, named after a well-known Azorean composer, and sit at a table at Suspiro. I order panike de chila, a croissant filled with a pumpkin jam, and take my regular, a café galão.

The ratio of cows to people on the island is 2 to 1. “20,000 cows, 10,000 people,” says António in such a proud way that I don’t think he’s ever considered the potential of mutiny.

The island centers around its natural resource: the cow. That’s why the interior is open green pastures (for grazing). That’s why there are nine cheese factories (for mixing the original recipes of unpasteurized full-cream milk, rennet and salt). And that’s why one evening while I’m enjoying wedges of the nutty, tangy São Jorge specialty, with its grassy aroma, in Restaurante Velense, I hear a ruckus: A French sailor who doesn’t speak Portuguese but desperately wants to communicate.

Fromage, he says. The whole restaurant understands that he wants cheese, the famous 10-kilogram wheel from São Jorge. But it’s Friday night, and he wants it before he sets sail at the first itch of sunlight on Saturday. The story soon comes to a fabulous conclusion: A waitress’ father works in a cheese factory, and she’ll have it delivered to his boat.

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