Visits to Pico by Ferry in May 2001 and July 2004 from Horta

Pico's mountain from the North-West on a clear day - this is the highest mountain in Portugal

On Sunday we took the ferry to the next-door island of Pico and we did a tour of the island by taxi. We wanted to take a bus but there were none, then we wanted to hire a car, but none of us had brought a driving licence, but we ended up with a really good tour of the island. We stopped in many places that we would not have found if we had hired a car. We stopped at a farm yard where they made some spirit which we tasted (called "aguadent" - means "fire-water" and this one was made from figs), and we looked around the fruit crushers and stills. The coastline has many jagged black volcanic rocks. In one area molten lava had flowed into the sea about 50 years ago and one could walk around the lava flow area on the conveniently built concrete path. The craggy shapes into which the igneous rock had been formed was amazing and in some places almost incredible. In one place there was an almost naturally formed dog-shaped rock!

The shapes into which the lava had formed some 50 years ago was truly amazing!

This is the almost naturally-formed volcanic dog and Julia some 3 years later on Friday 9th July 2004 

This is a naturally-formed volcanic bridge in the same lava flow area on the North Western coast of Pico which formed from lava flow during an eruption about 50 years ago. 

There are 2 whaling museums there (they stopped whaling in 1984 but partly because there was little market for the whale oil - mostly from sperm whales which was the major catch - and so the operation was really uneconomic). There is an old whale processing factory on the North side of the island, with large boilers and rendering vats, and another smaller museum on the South side which had one of the old whaling boats and there we saw a video of the whole whaling operation which was a bit grisly and grim in parts. Of course we did not experience the smell which must have been really horrible in the cutting up and rendering process. I wrote in the visitors book that I am glad for the whales that they no longer do this!

Restored whalers on the hard - The whaler's sculpture - and the whale winch outside the old whale processing factory at Sao Roque on the North side of Pico

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