Dolores, First of all, do not be afraid of going to the Azores. The people are wonderful and most helpful. I do not read/write/speak Portuguese and my husband even less so and we had a wonderful week in Terceira and 2 days in Ponta Delgada (much too short a time but I was researching an Orphange there). Our hotel served breakfast so we only ate a late lunch/early dinner most days and walked to the local cafes for this. We picked up cokes, water at the stores and brought them back to our hotel which has a very nice restaurant also. My husband loved the big donuts at a small cafe on the way to the Archives. The Archives where they have the records you are looking for is a 10 minute walk, some uphill, from the hotel I noted. The town square is right in front of the hotel and they had various small events during the week. We walked to some beautiful churches, walked to the Jewish Cemetery and they have a beautiful walk that goes around the ocean - can't remember the name of it. At night, most everything in Terceira closes down so a wonderful friend who took us sightseeing and we went out to dinner a couple of nights. But I noticed a lady at our hotel had them arrange a taxi tour for her. There is a large American military base in Lajes and that is where your plane would land. These inter-island planes are small but I imagine the ones going from the US are larger.
If you want a free genealogy program, go to familysearch.org and download their PAF. If you have a Mac computer, you will have to ask others on this site what program they use. I believe the Archives charged me something like 10 cents to make copies of the records I wanted and they are very friendly there, but it seems you already have records to go on. How lucky for you!! Most of us would die to have these records so readily available to us. I will look and see if I still have the map we used when we went there. What other islands are you thinking about visiting? I, too, thought I would do genealogy all day but we had such fun just walking around Angra that I did not do as much as I probably should have. You can contact me at my personal email address if you would like. "E" PS: Don't forget to buy some Euros from your US bank before you go so you have enough to pay cab, etc. You can then use your ATM card at the local banks to get a better exchange rate when you are there. There was one just outside our hotel. -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership."
