Bonus Island?

Friday, March 30, 2018
Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal
With Azores Air, things can look up in small increments. Our 10:15pm flight wouldn’t leave until almost 11:00pm, which put our connection from Ponta Delgada in jeopardy.  We put that thought out of our mind and enjoyed our big wide seats, eating dinner with real cutlery, and seeing air travel on the “other side of the curtain”!
With little to no sleep, we arrived in Ponta Delgada about 7:45am, 15 minutes after our connector flight left. The good news was there was another flight; the bad, it wouldn’t be until 2:30pm. To ease our pain, the SATA agent gave us vouchers for a free lunch (not much of a consolation).
Not wanting to sit in the airport all day, we checked our bags and walked into the town of Relva. It was pedestrian friendly all the way from the terminal into the center of town, offering great coastline views. We attributed it to being Good Friday, but the streets were almost completely empty and almost no businesses were open. (Later found out it was a holiday.)
We had to have walked at least five miles by the time we got back to the terminal. We wasted away an hour or so before having our “free lunch” about 12:30. We had a choice of soup or lasagna and a drink each. Going for the lasagna and a beer and wine, we made the mistake of asking for a water, and were, curtly told, “one drink”.
It was a cattle car boarding on a twin-prop plane for the 40 minute flight to Terceira. There were probably 20 of us met by a rep from Getaways Azores. We loaded onto a motor coach for the 20 minute ride to Angra do Heroismo. 
We would be dropped at three different hotels, ours the Terceira Mar.  As we approached Angra do Heroísmo, we knew we would love the place: white stucco buildings with red tiled roofs, cliff-lined coastline, cobblestone sidewalks, ancient stone fortress looking down on the harbor, etc., etc...beautiful!
Check-in was a breeze. We settled into our room and both exhausted, thought about crashing. However, the sun was shining and this beautiful town was calling. After walking and admiring the hotel grounds we headed into the city center. 
Each little street seemed better than the last one. We ended up down by the harbor and after narrowing down the restaurant options, we ended up at the Tasha das Tias. Sue had a lightly breaded hake filet and Dave a grilled cherne, both were delicious. With a cozy, yet kinda cosmo atmosphere and great service, it was the perfect antidote we needed to put a couple of bad travel days behind us.
On the walk back to the Terceira Mar we stopped at a small market and got a bottle of wine and water. Back in the room we sat on the balcony for a nightcap and crashed before 9:00! Our bad travel memories had almost dissolved!

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