Danielle has a high reputation work-wise. Which means she gets invited to various international seminars etc. The one last week was for people from both sides of the Atlantic [Europe, US, Chile etc]. So the obvious place was to have it in the Azores; right in the middle of the Atlantic. Equally obvious was that I needed to accompany her.
It is an amazing place, lush verdant, temperate, totally unsettled until the Portuguese discovered it, now home to Friesan cattle, pineapples, tea, oranges and not that many tourists.
We flew from Stanstead having driven down there [not something I thought I would ever write but trains proved impossible] on a civilized Ryan Air flight [there is another surprise]. We met up with six of Danielle's co-attendees at Ponta Delgada airport then taxied to the hotel at Furnas.
The Azores are volcanic islands on the same plate-junction as Iceland to the North, so thermal activity is common. Furnas has open caldera pumping out sulphurous steam constantly. A little disconcerting and certainly different as you wonder around the town.
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