The Azores is an archipelago of 9 islands in the Atlantic and owned by Portugal. They are volcanic islands, which have both dormant and active volcanos.
We are staying in the town of Calhetas which is almost directly across the island from Ponta Delgada (the Capital) and it took us only 20 minutes to drive here on a great well maintained highway and road. The drive takes us past small villages and farmland, and the most notable thing is that all the land here is divided by stone fences and a lot of the homes have gates.
We rented a home through Home Away called Azor’Oasis which is home away property ID #821579 fand is owned by Josie who lives in Toronto. It is costing us $419 Euro for 4 nights. We arrive at the house to find at first glance a very authentic old home which has been renovated. It has about an acre of land extending all the way to the sea, with partially built concrete buildings. Rui explains that the owner (Josie from Toronto) had planned to make rooms to rent on the property, but the government has restrictions and they could only build with wood, so they stopped building and haven’t done anything more. We have the entire house and property to ourselves. At the entrance to the home is a very large gate to drive through. At the sea end is another large gate and then a smaller one. We wonder why all the securtiy, which every house seems to have.
Inside the house is 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, another bathroom is outside in the separate laundry shed. A fully equipped kitchen complete with pizza oven (although I don’t think we are to use it because they didn’t mention this in the ad). There is an upper and lower patio outside surrounded by a concrete enclosure, which provides a shelter from the wind. At the seaside is another patio area with table and chairs for lounging. The roof is clay tiles and all the windows have metal shutters which, when the window is open, provides privacy and security but allows air in.
As we look around it is clear the house was planned to operate as an inn. There are supplies for hosting many guests – 3 sets of dishes, pots, serving dishes, utensils, etc. for cooking large meals.
Waiting for us when we arrived, around 6 pm., as promised, was the caretaker Eduarda Botelho, who had prepared a delicious authentic Azorean meal -an appetizer tray of local fresh cheese, crackers and olives, a soup made with kale and chorizo with a bit of heat to it and great flavour, a stew of pork, limpets, and potato, and a mousse for dessert made with passionfruit which was delicious. We had enough of everything leftover to have the same meal the next day. They also provided complimentary a bottle of wine, beer, water, and coffee for the next morning. Josie also had stocked in the house extra wine, nespresso coffee pods which could be purchased.
We settled ourselves in and had our meal, then an early night as we were tired from a day of travel.