The Azores are a few specks on the map, and on a forgotten chapter in Jewish history
MY wife and I spent our shanah rishonah saving up for a honeymoon in Europe, planning on knocking some countries off our bucket lists.
We just differed on where we wanted to go. She loves to visit well known cities with a rich history, culture, and clean bathrooms, while I prefer the untrodden trail. We compromised by deciding that I could put one atypical destination onto our itinerary of seven cities. After killing a few hours scanning Google Maps, I settled on the Azores — a group of nine volcanic islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, about 900 miles off the coast of Portugal, of which it’s an autonomous region. In my criteria: It was unique, it was remote… and the flight and hotel were cheap.
When we traveled, the only direct flights from the US to the Azores left from Boston, where a large Portuguese diaspora is based. Our TAP Air flight was scheduled to take off from Boston Logan at 8 p.m., but was delayed until midnight. Turns out the reason was that the pilot and crew had wanted to take an unscheduled jaunt around the city, which they did, confident that the flight wouldn’t leave without them. Apparently, this happens every Sunday night.
Eventually we took off, and after a six-hour flight, we arrived in Ponta Delgada, the capital of São Miguel, the largest of the Azorean islands.
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