Ponta Delgada Things to Do

We took a cruise with Royal Caribbean, got out at port Ponta Delgada without clear cut plan or purchased excursion. Stopped at Information Center across the street from the ship, and were told it would be best to take a taxi at the nearby intersection to visit Sete Cidades if we wanted a private tour. We were told the average price would be 50 Eurodollars. We ran into Mario Figuerira in his taxi who gave us the quote of exactly 50 Euro. It was a wonderful trip from this point on. He was very pleasant, spoke almost perfect English, very honest and patient. We enjoyed Sete Cidades much. On the way back to the ship, we asked to be taken to Furnas for an extra amount of 40 Euros. He took us to a nearby fast food restaurant for a hearty but cheap meals of 5 Euro per person before we drove another one hour to see Furnas. Both were really worth the money spent for 3 of us. We got back to the ship with one hour to relax before the deadline. Quick calculation showed we saved much by this private trip instead of purchasing the excursion from the trip. Mario was excellent, he was very gentle, not pushy, very honest and with fluent English. We took down his email: taxi.figueira@hotmail.com, phone: 912 604 653. Call him or email him before arrival, and enjoy the island. It was truly beautiful, we plan to come back and use his service again. Hien Pham M.D of San Jose, CA

The Azores used to be a very impoverised place, especially during the Salazar dictatorship where commonman had almost no chance of education and prosperity and therefore many Azorans emmigrated during that period.
There was also a vulcanic eruption in 1958 that ruined many buildings and many people migrated to the United States after that.
And many young locals have also in recent years gone to Bermuda to work in the tourist industry.
These days you have more people with azoren blood living in North America thna you have living on the Azores and that is honored with a little statue in the center of Ponta Delgada showing a migrant family.

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The Sao Sebastiao church is the main church in Ponta Delgada and it´s a 15th century church with a lot of interesting touches.
The entrances to the church are manueline style which is a unique portugese building style from the 15th century and inside the church you have a lot of wood carvings in exotic wood from around the world.
This is not a church that you have to be religious in order to enjoy.

The town hall in Ponta Delgada is in my opnion one of the prettiest buildings in Ponta Delgada.
It used to be the house of a weathy merchant family and has a 17th century bell tower and it is located just around the corner from the main square.
It´s a classical azoran baroque building that is surely worth visiting.

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The Azores has lot´s of dolphins and there are several companies in Ponta Delgada offerering various kind of dolphin tours.
Futurismo is one company i have used several times and they are a good company with very educated guides and they are generally very reliable.
You have tours where you combine dolphin watching with whale watching and you also have tours where you can swin with the dolphins.
The waters around the Azores are packed with dolphins and you are almost always sure to see dolphins when you go on one of those tours.

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Museu Carlos Machado is the oldest and one of the most notable museums of the Azores. It was founded in 1876 by Carlos Maria Gomes Machado (1828-1901), a naturalist and college professor. Originally it focused on natural history with collections in zoology, botany, geology and mineralogy. Art and ethnographic sections were founded later and contributed to the expansion of the museum. In 1930 the museum was moved to the former Convento de Santo André from the 16th century, named for the first patron saint of Ponta Delgada.

The present collection has been greatly expanded and includes fascinating exhibits of regional ethnography, detailing the traditions and customs of island life, jewellery, glazed tiles, porcelain and toys. Upstairs there is an interesting gallery of folk art, contemporary paintings and sculptures. Of special interest is a collection of oil paintings from the Portuguese school, dating from the 16th century. The museum is surrounded by a lush garden with fountains and benches.

It is open May-Sep Tue-Fri 10am-noon and 2pm-5pm, Sat and Sun 11am-5:30pm; rest of the year Tue-Sat 10am-noon and 2pm-5pm.

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Whale watching is big on the Azores and Ponta Delgada has several companies offering it.
The Azores has a lot of whales, both several spieces of migrating whales aswell as quite a lot of sperm whales who reside there all year long.
There was commercial whaling on the Azores until 1986 but these days they make money out of showing the whales to the tourists and of the many companies offering it in Ponta Delgada there are a couple of real good ones with professional marine biologists working for them and a very responsible attitude.

I would highly recommend whale watching as it is spectacular and by creating a whale watching economy then there will be very few people wanting to back to hunting whales like you see people do in other parts of the world.

Of the companíes working with this in Ponta Delgada i would recommend "futurismo" or "picos de ventura" as they are very good.

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Ponta Delgada has a quite active fishing harbour that is pretty much right in the center of town.
I really like a town where the harbour is more than just yachts and cruise ships and it´s nice to see that some people can still make a living out of fishing here and it certainly adds positively to the atmosphere of the town.