Sao Miguel is the largest and most populated of the 9 Azorean islands; approximately half the population of the Azores lives on Sao Miguel and half the population of Sao Miguel lives in Ponta Delgada. The island was one of the first islands to be discovered and settled by the Portugese around 1440.  Today it is known as the green island owing to the lush and varied vegetation throughout the island.  The roadside verges are, I think, some of the most colorful I have seen anywhere.  The vast majority of the plants on the island are not native but have been imported from all corners of the earth.  Only at the higher elevations does the native vegetation remain.

We were again impressed by the old architecture in Ponta Delgada but sadly not the ugly construction of the 1980’s.  The cobblestone streets are particularly attractive as they each have limestone patterns amongst the dark volcanic stones in a pattern that seems to be unique to the street.

Today we had a most interesting bus tour of the island, thanks largely to an extremely well informed narrator and, thankfully the rain stopped.  We started off by visiting a pineapple greenhouse plantation north of Ponta Delgada.  The pineapples are grown from the same stock introduced over one hundred years ago, small, round and taking up to 2 years to mature, one pineapple per plant.  Needless to say, they command a high price.  They are also made into a strong sweet liquer that would be excellent on ice cream!

The most impressive scenery is at the younger, western end of the island that was formed ~ 250,000 years ago as opposed to 4 million years ago for the eastern end.  The bus took us into the very large caldera of an extinct volcano that is particularly verdant with rich fertile volcanic soil, which accordingly was settled by the agricultural workers.  Today no further building is permitted so even rather small houses can command extortionate prices on the market.  The area is famous for two particularly scenic adjacent (connected) lakes, the larger known as the blue lake and the smaller as the green lake (photo is at the top of this post)  Legend has it that a princess and a shepherd boy filled the blue and green lakes, respectively, with their tears when the king denied them to marry.

We plan to set off tomorrow morning for a day sail to the last remaining island on our agenda, Santa Maria.