Praia da Vitoria, Terceira, Azores May 18, 2024
After 7 days at sea, we made our first stop at Praia da Vitoria, Terceiera, Azores. The Azores are an archipelago made up of nine volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. They are about 2/3 of the way across the Atlantic from the USA. The nine islands are clustered into three groups...Flores and Corvo are westernmost; Graciosa, Terciera, Sao Jorge, Pico and Faial are centrally located; and the Formiga Islets are to the east. An autonomous region of Portugal, the Azores are 870 miles west of Lisbon. Each group of islands is home to one of the branches of government. Ponta Delgado, is home to the executive branch, Angra do Heroismo is home to the judicial and Horta is home to the legislative branch. The population of the Azores is 236,440 and it's main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing and tourism. We saw evidence of livestock and farming on our shuttle ride into Praia da Vitoria. Almost all the houses had at least one or more cows in the...