Lagoa Do Fogo

PSA: 575 metres of elevation gain is a lot of elevation gain.

This morning, we got an early start, heading to breakfast as soon as the dining room opened. I was delighted to see my new friend, the bolo levado, and made another new friend in a raspberry orange juice that was more smoothie than juice. With a big hike ahead of us today that would take us past lunch, we headed over to the Mercado da Graça, which was just a few minutes from the hotel, to get some fruit for the hike. Sadly, it was closed. Turns out, today is Freedom Day, which is the day celebrating the Carnation Revolution in 1974 that ended a dictatorship. So the market wasn’t open. Back to the hotel we went to get packed up and ready to go. Soon, we were in line to pick up our rental car and heading off to find our starting point for the day. We have a cute little electric Yaris, which took us an unreasonable amount of time to figure out was actually running because it was so quiet.

We were heading towards Lagoa do Fogo, a lake that apparently has multiple viewpoints, given the number of signs we saw for it on the highway. We absolutely took an exit that was far too early for where we needed to be but eventually, found the right spot and got the car parked. Then we started walking uphill.

This hike was taking us up to - you guessed it - Lagoa do Fogo,, which sits in a crater of a volcano that last erupted in 1563 and now is a nature reserve. According to our “Walking on the Azores” guidebook, we could expect the 15.5km hike to take us about 5 hours and have a total ascent of 650m. The route starts on a concrete road which felt practically vertical and wasn’t anything too exciting but after a couple of kilometres, you get to the trailhead and leave the road behind. We had a beautiful, not-too-hot day which was great because the elevation gain was in spurts where you’d go up these pretty steep inclines and then get a bit of a break before another steep incline. Once we were on the trail, it was mostly wooded and often shady, which made the incline much more pleasant. When we felt like we had been climbing forever, the incline levelled off and we were walking along a water channel. The channel was full enough that there were a few places it was spilling over the top and little bridges had been constructed to get you over the running water. Then, it was into a valley with lots of little channels running all over it before climbing the last little bit of elevation and reaching the lake.

The lake was beautiful. There were very few people at the top of the trail and no one on the lake, at all. I’m not sure where the lookouts were but I had read that it wasn’t uncommon for the view to be obscured by mist so I think they were quite high up. There was no mist in sight today, though - just a couple of fluffy clouds. Our guidebook had said the hike was a loop but the trail markers were showing us heading back in the same direction we came. I didn’t have the guidebook and we weren’t really keen on the idea of winging it and finding out a trail had been closed or something along those lines so we headed back the way we came. We saw relatively few people on our way up to the lake so I was surprised at how many people we saw as we were heading back down, especially since the day had gotten quite warm and it was starting to get quite late in the afternoon. In the end, we finished up just before 3, for a total time of about 4 hours. And we ended up climbing 576 metres. It was a lot. You should see the exercise ring on my watch zoom around and lap itself over and over again.

On our way back, we decided we’d stop at a pineapple plantation. Once again, our navigation went awry and we first landed at a car rental place. It wasn’t very exciting. We did find the right spot soon after where we saw the cutest little pineapples. Pineapples take TWO YEARS to grow. No wonder they try to kill you with their thorny little spikes! It was fun to see the greenhouses full of tiny pineapples.

Our last stop for the day was our Azorean wine and cheese experience. When we start planning a trip, the first thing I do is look for food tours. And after some debate, we landed on the Azorean Wine and Cheese experience with Hungry Whales. They did have the kind of tour we typically take - wandering through the streets of the city but with COVID, we thought this was a better option. And it was a delight!

The experience took place at a local B&B - and it ended up being just EDP, myself and one other traveller. Our guide for the evening was excellent, sharing all sorts of local history with us. We had such a lovely evening, trying several different Azorean wines, including a small glass of port and a mint aperitif, which I thought was very reminiscent of the dentist in all the best ways (I like the dentist, okay - they always tell me how wonderful my teeth are!) These were paired with delicious cheeses and some excellent jams. The cheeses were far superior to the ones we tried yesterday. I should have kept better track of what the cheeses were so that we could try to come across them again in our travels but alas, I was too busy enjoying everything. Our evening included a tour of the garden, where we saw bananas and citrus growing. It was a delightful end to a busy day.

Ponta Delgada

It feels so good to be travelling again. And I say that as someone who got about 3 hours of sleep last night - on an airplane.

We left Toronto last night around 9pm and with a 6-ish hour flight just and a 4 hour time difference, we landed in Ponta Delgada this morning at about 6:30. It was a bit drizzly so they had busses to transport us from the tarmac to the airport, which was very nice but it definitely took longer for the bus to fill up and get us to the terminal than it would have for us to walk. We waited in a very short customs line, where a toddler had a complete meltdown because she didn’t believe her mother that we weren’t in Toronto anymore - and kid, I feel ya, I would be having a complete meltdown, too, if I thought we hadn’t left Canada. But soon we had our bags and had been dropped off at our hotel. Of course, it was far too early to check in but we were able to do some quick reshuffling to repack the travel backpack for the day and we headed off to see Ponta Delgada. I had a self-guided walking tour from one of the guidebooks to hit the highlights of this charming little city.

We started off in the main town square, Praça Gonçalo Velho Cabral, with it’s 3 arches which formed the original city gates. The square used to be the harbour, before it was built up in the 1940s. Just up a bit from there was the Parish Church of São Sebastião, where we got turned around for the first time on the walking tour, going to the wrong side of the church. We found our way eventually, seeing the old customs house, the town hall (formerly the home of a very wealthy family and the home of the oldest bel in the Azores), the old post office, and towards Forte de São Brás at the end of the harbour. Then, it was into Praça 5 de Outubro, with some very interesting trees (pollarded trees, according to the walking tour) and one very interesting tree, a 140+ year old imported tree from Australia. The square had a monastery, a convent and a church along its sides, and since it was early on Sunday morning, the largest crowds we had seen so far (like 8 people…) Then it was along the back of the square to see a few government buildings en route to the Carlos Machado Museum, which is connected to the Igreja do Colégio, a church built by the Jesuits that was used as a warehouse after they were expelled. We got turned around again and bumbled around a bit before finding the Teatro Michaelense. the theatre in town. The last remaining stop on the walking tour was close to our hotel so we stopped back at the first square we had visited to sit in a small cafe for a bit, having a late breakfast. We both opted for the “local platter” which had a bit of jam, butter, fresh pineapple, two kinds of cheese (one of which was really just a bland cottage cheese…) and two kinds of bread (one of which was almost cake-like and the other was bolo levado which was like a sweet English muffin and my new favourite bread product.) It wasn’t bad for a first meal, especially since selection was low on a Sunday morning.

It was still too early to expect our hotel room to be available so we walked along the water, marvelling at the giant cruise ship in the harbour and being somewhat amused by the small swimming area where you could swim in the ocean, if you so chose. EDP is waffling on this - on one hand, he’d like to give it a try but on the other, it’s really rather close to where all the ships, etc. are so you gotta wonder how clean the water is. After that, we figured that hanging out at the hotel’s outdoor patio seemed like a good plan so we got some drinks (first glass of Azorean wine!) and let the sun warm us and come very close to lulling one of us to sleep (3 hours!!) until the lovely front desk clerk came out to tell us she had a room for us. After collecting our bags, we headed up to our room with a view of the bay - which I’m delighted we opted for over the ocean view since the cruise ships dock directly in front of our hotel. After a bit of a refresh, we headed back out to see some gardens before dinner but alas, they were closing as we got there. So it was off to dinner!

The restaurant EDP had found, São Pedro, was really close to our hotel and he thought there was a patio. But when we got there - no patio. It doesn’t open until later in the season. So we had our first indoor dining experience in a long time. And it was delicious. I had tuna with a sweet potato mash and it easily the best tuna I’ve ever had and will be one of those meals I am still talking about in years. I also had my second glass of Azorean wine, this time a green wine, which is like a white wine but with a little bit of sparkle to it. Of course, there was also dessert - how could it be travel without dessert! It was such a lovely dinner - and really set a high bar for the rest of our eating here!

Tomorrow, we start our hiking! We’ve got three days in a row of hiking planned with tomorrow’s being the most strenuous. After Norway, though, I feel like I can conquer anything!

The Azores

Well, it’s been a couple of real nail biter weeks around here - but I’m delighted to say that we’re leaving the country.

We cautiously rebooked our trip to the Azores in the middle of March - expanding the trip out by a few days and adding a second island into the mix. A little after that, I started planning the itinerary and booking anything that had a good cancellation policy. EDP kept his eyes on the numbers. I put my Ativan and my passport (still valid!) in the guest room. EDP added a box of COVID tests. I started searching for somewhere to get our departing COVID tests done for a reasonable price. EDP suggested we shouldn’t expect eating indoors to be safe. I put us into self-imposed isolation 2 weeks before we were supposed to leave. EDP asked me if I had heard about the volcano on Sao Jorge. I resigned myself to having to cancel NOT because of COVID but because of a stupid volcano erupting (the volcano is not stupid.)

But it didn’t. And we didn’t get COVID. We did get negative PCR tests from Life Labs (hey, Life Labs - if you’re reading this, PLEASE reword the start of the section on what to do if you get a positive test result because while I understand in my head that you aren’t going to put test results in an email, when you’re scrolling your results at 5am and you see “COVID test result is positive” in bold red letters, you have a mild heart attack. Just either add the “If your” also in red & bold or reword the whole sentence. Please?) We packed up the dog and EDP’s vegetable seedlings for their vacation and then packed up ourselves and went to an airport to GET ON AN AIRPLANE TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY.

And now we’re gloriously on our way to the Azores - specifically, to São Miguel for 4 days and Terceira for 3 with 3 days for travelling. We have an overnight flight that gets us in to Ponta Delgada very early on tomorrow morning, staying at the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico with a bay view and a car rental for a couple of days so that we can:

• Wander around Ponta Delgada, exploring this lovely little city

• Hike up to Lagoa do Fogo

• Experience local wines & cheeses with the Hungry Whales company

• Hike the Salto Do Cabrito trail

• Visit the Caldeira Velha hot springs

• Visit the Cha Gorreana tea plantation

• Hike the Lagoa das Sete Cidades hike

• Visits the Ponta da Ferraria hot springs

• Canoe Lagoa das Furnas with Picos de Aventura

• Take a Gin Masterclass at the Solar Branco Eco Estate

Then we move on to Terceira, taking a lazy day to travel over to Angra do Heroísmo, staying at the Terceira Mar Hotel with an ocean view while we:

• Hike Monte Brasil

• Visit the Museu do Angra do Heroísmo and the Jardin Duque de Terceira

• Go on a whale & dolphin watching tour with Ocean Emotion

• Go out to Algar do Carvão & the Gruta do Natal

• Rent a car for a day to tour around the island

And then we have a final travel day to get home! We’re gone for about 10 days and are sticking to almost entirely outdoor activities. We’ll keep our masks on, though there’s no requirement for masks in the Azores at this point - their numbers are quite a bit lower than ours and numbers have been slowly decreasing so we’re hopeful everything is fine, but we do have that box of COVID tests, just in case.

COVID19 and the Travel that Wasn't

I don’t remember the last time I’ve gone so long without leaving the country…

COVID hit Ontario in 2020 just as I was transitioning between jobs. I took two weeks between leaving my last job and starting the new one, hoping to get a last-minute deal and spend some time relaxing before the new job. My last day of work was March 13. On March 12, Ontario announced schools would be closed for an extra two weeks after March Break. Our premier encouraged people to still travel and have fun on March Break. 5 days later, we were in our first lockdown. I spent my two weeks between jobs at the opposite end of the sofa.

We still hoped that our typical fall trip could go forward. We started some very light planning - primarily just thinking about where to go. It quickly became clear international travel wasn’t going to be an option in 2020 at all so we pivoted and started planning a trip to BC. We booked time off, hotels & flights. Things were looking okay through the summer. We watched the numbers in the health units in BC and soon realised we’d need to cancel the couple of days we were going to spend in Vancouver and spend all our time in wine country. We cancelled everything at the end of August when the second wave was making itself known. We looked for something closer to home but nothing worked out. We did manage a day trip a couple of hours away but otherwise, we were at the opposite end of the sofa.

For the last few years, EDP has planned a snowboarding trip. Sometimes I go. Sometimes I don’t. When we cancelled our BC plans, he started planning a January 2021 snowboarding trip for Banff. Banff is where we went at the beginning of 2020, back when you just got on an airplane all willy-nilly and your pants still fit. We had a great time so I was happy to go back. Banff had outdoor dining and all sorts of other good precautions and was asking people to come. We booked hotels & flights for late January. I held off on booking the time off this time around. Alberta introduced major restrictions in early December and Ontario went into its second lockdown on December 26. We cancelled flights and the hotel and instead, worked & stayed at the usual end of the sofa.

In August 2020, in a fit of optimism and with a tantalising deal in front of us, we booked a week in the Azores with a hotel room overlooking the water for April 2021. We thought that surely, things would be under control by then. We were supposed to leave on April 22, returning April 30. On February 22, the Canadian government began a mandatory hotel quarantine, likely until the end of April. We considered rescheduling the trip for the fall but ended up cancelling altogether. Which is good because Ontario went into its third lockdown at the beginning of April. The time off work never got booked for that one so we worked as usual & stayed at the usual end of the sofa.

But then, by the grace of science, vaccines started rolling in. And on May 22, I sobbed while the world’s most alarmed nurse wondered if she was going to have to sedate me instead of vaccinating me (okay, I always cry when I get a needle but the sobbing out of relief was new.) And we rebooked our trip to BC for the fall of 2021 as the forth wave was subsiding. And we got on an AIRPLANE and flew to the other side of the country where we went to restaurants and the aquarium and bicycled through Stanley Park and drove up to Kelowna and did some hiking and visited wineries and had the most AMAZING lunch at Mission Hill and sent entirely too much wine home (that’s a lie, there’s no such thing as too much wine but we did repurpose a bathroom as a wine cellar.) It’s not what we expected for 2021 but it felt good to be somewhere new. And then, the crazy cats that we are, we went to Banff in January! I read by a fireplace and took some long, lovely walks while EDP snowboarded and then we watched entirely too much HGTV while eating take out. It felt so good to be seeing new things again.

And now, with the fifth wave theoretically behind us and mask mandates lifted far too early (it’s a fucking mask, just put it on and stop being such a baby - things are not safe for the immunocompromised and they can’t “just stay home” because something tells me if you are so convinced that your “right” to not wear a mask is more important than their right to LITERALLY BE ALIVE, your politics probably don’t include universal basic income or expanded health care but even if you did, they still need to leave their homes to WORK and get the basic necessities of life so... Anyway. What was I saying? Right, put your mask on and…) we’ve rebooked our Azores trip! It’s expanded out by a few days and we’re staying on two of the islands now instead of just one but we have that room overlooking the water again. Have we managed to time this just right to be between waves and variants? No one knows. Do I have any pants that I’ll be able to wear? No one knows. Is my passport still valid? No one knows. But that does seem like something I should figure out pretty soon.

Return to Brussels

Ah, the last day of a trip… When you are torn about having to leave the awesome place where you are but also are looking forward to a night in your own bed and a full sized bottle of shampoo in the shower.

We started our day with one last trip to the local bakery for breakfast before getting back in the car to drive back into Belgium on those well-travelled highways so no lovely winding roads for today.

Our first stop of the day was Grottes de Han, a walk through a cave system that ends with a light show! Our next stop was to be Grotte de Lorette but as we were buying our tickets for Han, we learned the second grotto wasn’t open on Tuesdays so we weren’t going to be able to visit it. I was a bit disappointed but Han was the more impressive of the two so at least there was that. Our trip into the grotto started with a little ride on a train, which was a charming start to the experience. Once up at the caves, we were divided into two groups for tours - neither of which were in English so we went into the group that didn’t have all the school children, a no-brainer of a decision. After waiting for a bit, we were led into the cave system. Unfortunately, the tour wasn’t in English and the information we had wasn’t really sufficient to give us the whole story but it was so cool to see the caves and all the rock formations. The end really did culminate in a light show, which was quite enjoyable!

After we emerged from the cave system, we headed off to get some lunch in town before getting back into the car to reach our final sight for the day and the trip - Chateau de Modave. We had audio guides for this tour and felt like we had the place to ourselves for most of it. The castle was quite beautiful and the heraldic ceiling in the main room was absolutely astounding. The views out over the valley from the balcony were nothing to sneeze at, either. We finished up our visit by wandering a bit outside in the lovely sunshine.

Then, it was into the car to head back to the airport, dropping off the rental car and taking a cab over to the final hotel where we quickly learned there was nothing within walking distance so we ordered in burgers (no more croquettes for me…) before I packed and repacked everything four thousand times. In the morning, we caught the shuttle back to the airport for the flight back to Toronto.

So now, we’re home again with a million pictures to sort through and a thousand boxes of chocolates and a hundred croquettes to think fondly of and one really amazing trip to think back on.

Luxembourg

You know, for such a small country, Luxembourg sure has a lot of castles.

Yesterday morning, we bid adieu to my parents and sister and got back in the car for the drive to Luxembourg. We had to cross almost the entire country so I definitely took advantage of the long drive to get a bit more sleep. Now, I say “long drive” and “across the country” like those are very big deals. They aren’t. Yes, a long drive for Belgium but nothing compared to some of the days of driving we had in Norway or Iceland. Partly, that’s because Belgium is small but also because we got to drive on proper highways that weren’t full of hairpin turns. Even with it being our longest drive of the trip, we were still in Luxembourg City in only a couple of hours.

And then we tried to park. Which was a disaster. After close to an hour of trying to get parked, EDP finally told me to just get out the car and go start seeing things and that he’d catch up (remind me again why we rent cars in Europe instead of just taking trains like civilised people do?) We weren’t heading into anything today, just checking out stuff outside so he wasn’t going to miss anything, he’d just see it all much faster than I did. So off I went to see Bock Casemates, the cliff that the fort that would eventually turn into Luxembourg City was built on. Over time, galleries and passageways were built into the cliffs and many of them still remain accessible. So I checked out the areas at street level before meandering over to Chemin de la Corniche, which claims to be Europe’s most beautiful balcony, winding along the old city’s ramparts, where EDP and I were going to try to join forces again. I took my time wandering along, expecting EDP to catch up to me and that we’d then wander back together. But I reached a construction blockade and so turned around to head back the way I came, expecting to run into EDP along the way. That didn’t happen either. Poor EDP got to the promenade but at the blocked end. So it took a little longer than expected to connect back up. By then, I was cold so we headed up into the old city to grab some hot chocolate and head back to the casemates.

There are a lot of tunnels and paths that make up the casemates (I think something like 17km?) so we knew we’d only see a little bit but we couldn’t figure out how to get down onto some of the pathways down in the valley by the river. Eventually, we decided you must have to approach from another side and headed into the Archeological Crypt to see some of the tunnels. That was really neat as they had been carved into the cliffs instead of being built up. It made for very uneven floors, low ceilings, and confusing passageways. It was interesting to wander through but I think I prefer my passageways a bit more logical. We ended our day with a quick dinner and short drive to the hotel.

This morning, we started our castle day. Today’s agenda called for three castles, just a tiny sampling of what’s here. After a quick walk over to the local bakery, we headed north, taking some back roads to avoid construction or morning rush hour or something like that. The back roads took us through some beautiful wooded areas where we admired the trails and streams, fully understanding why Luxembourg is a popular hiking destination.

Our first castle of the day was Beaufort Castle. Oh, right, this is why we rent cars in Europe - because we probably wouldn’t have been able to get to it, otherwise… Beaufort is made up of the ruins of a medieval castle and a Renaissance château. The château wasn’t open, it has very limited hours so we spent our time wandering through the ruins of the old castle, learning how it was expanded over time. There was some restoration work being done, so several areas weren’t accessible but what we could see was lovely. We also got to try some of the locally made liquors - they were VERY strong and not really either of our styles.

Then, it was on to Vianden, a huge castle that has been beautifully restored from complete ruins. Construction made it tricky to get down to the parking and has made most of the town around the castle inaccessible (seriously - all of the restaurants have just closed up!) We headed up the drive, collected an audio guide and set out to see the castle. They’ve done an incredible job with the restoration. One room of the castle is full of photographs and drawings, showing how things looked and the plans for the restoration. The castle was built up over time starting in Roman times and the area has gone through some boom and bust times, leading the castle to fall into disrepair but in the 70s, it was carefully restored and now is a beautiful site to visit.

Our final castle for the day was Bourscheid. This castle was incredibly unique as the town associated with it sits higher than the castle does. Normally, the castle is at the highest point but not so much in this case. It is still at the top of a big hill but the town sits on a higher one. This castle is almost entirely in ruins, much like Beaufort. Like the other castles, this one was built up over time. It’s been very interesting to see the progression of the builds, see how styles changed as time went by.

Then, it was back to the hotel for dinner and our last “real” night of the trip. Tomorrow, we head back to Brussels & the airport, stopping at two grottos and a castle on the way.