Pico - Day 1

Quick 45 min flight from San Miguel island to Pico island. Mostly famous for two things. The tallest mountain in all of Portugal. And a completely unique volcanic wine region of the world.

Picked up our rental car from the airport and as soon as we exited the airport, we could tell we were in the wine country part of the island.

Literally less than a 5 minute drive and we were driving on the ocean coast with easily the biggest waves i have ever seen, sprays of water hitting our car, and we werent even close the rocky shore.

As we made our way to a nearby winery, we were super puzzled by all the mazes of two foot high stone walls everywhere. Apparently they protect the vines from the elements enough to provide an extra 2-3 degrees of warmth. And oh boy we could have used an extra couple of degrees ourselves. Brrrr. I wished i had a rocky wall around me yesterday :)

Ordered a couple of glasses of white and a big charcuterie board and stayed about 90 minutes enjoying the incredible views, awesome wine and nibbles and each others company :)

Drove into the cute town of Madelena and found the apartment we rented, quickly unloaded and got back in the car to tour the island. Drove along the coast for 30 minutes then up up up into the mountains. Fantastic views but unfortunately lots of clouds obstructing everything. Literally driving in the clouds. Very hard to capture in photos.

Back to the apartment for a quick rest. Then found a cute tapas restaurant for some fish soup, also ordered one "broken egg" to share which i called the azores version of poutine. Fried eggs over top of bacon and ham, over top of fries and some other light sauce in there too.

Found another pub to resume our backgammon matches, and finished the day back at our apartment, playing backgammon, drinking a delicious bottle of wine tita bought at the vineyard and some music. For those keeping score, i made a furious comeback 😁Read more