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Originally Posted by xzmattzx
What are the details on flying to the Azores? Did you do it from Toronto? Was it direct? How much was the flight?
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Yeah, there are daily direct flights between Toronto and Ponta Delgada. Round-trip was about $500, though we only did one-way, which I think was around $300.
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Originally Posted by niwell
Great pics! I feel like almost everyone I know has been travelling to Portugal lately and have heard lots of good things (plus now have some canned seafood from there in my cupboard). This is my first time seeing the Azores though - looks beautiful. They sometimes get a bad rap in Toronto, as I'm sure you're familiar with living in Little Portugal.
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Ha, the Azorean stereotypes are… not completely undeserved. It's quite isolated and doesn't have a particularly strong economic base - the GDP per capita is closer to that of Mexico than to mainland Portugal, for example - and it shows a little bit. In many of the towns, you'll see a lot of these groups of men that just kind of stand around on the street all day doing nothing in particular, aside from drinking and staring at whoever goes by (same kinda guys you might see at the sketchy Toronto sports bars - just a lot more of 'em). Case in point:
https://goo.gl/maps/A1vKFMHd3eJ2. Not that they cause any trouble or anything, of course, but it's apparent that the economic situation there isn't great for a lot of people.
Definitely still a beautiful, idyllic place though; with a super diverse landscape - especially considering the island of São Miguel is only a little bit larger than the City of Toronto and manages to have everything from subtropical forests to hot springs to rolling hills to volcanic rock, beaches, lakes, and pine forests crammed in there. And the food is amazing.