On the flight home from our most recent trip, my husband forwarded me a New Yorker article that lambasted travel. Right. We are traveling, and he wants me to read something by a person who hates traveling. Makes all the sense in the world.
Our friends and family know well that, other than seeing them, what we missed most during the height of the pandemic was traveling. As a couple, we agreed many years ago that we’d prefer to live frugally in most other ways so we could have enough “disposable income” to visit other parts of the planet. Not that we don’t love our beautiful little corner, we do. A lot. But seeing how other cultures live, how they eat, how they create art and music, how they worship, how they play, how they nurture the plants and animals that inhabit their world — all these have been and continue to be endlessly fascinating to us.
The curmudgeon writer at the New Yorker scoffs at everything we find delightful. She proudly quotes a screed by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa in his “Book of Disquiet” that crackles with disgust: “I abhor new ways of life and unfamiliar places…Travel is for those who cannot feel…Only extreme poverty of the imagination justifies having to move around to feel.”
Well, if I’ve ever begged to differ, now is the time. I happily counter with a quote from Portuguese writer Jose Saramago, whose travels and writings about travel are among the world’s greatest literature:
“When the traveler sat in the sand and declared, ‘There’s nothing more to see,’ he knew it wasn’t true. The end of one journey is simply the start of another. You have to see what you missed the first time, see again what you already saw, see in springtime what you saw in summer, in daylight what you saw at night, see the sun shining where you saw the rain falling, see the crops growing, the fruit ripen, the stone which has moved, the shadow that was not there before. You have to go back to the footsteps already taken, to go over them again or add fresh ones alongside them. You have to start the journey anew. Always.”
Exactly. That trip we were flying back from is a prime example of Saramago’s point of view. We’d been to Sao Miguel, the largest island in the Azores archipelago, several times before, but hadn’t returned in nine years.
We’d never visited in winter, only in summer and early autumn. We weren’t entirely sure what to expect, other than a lack of ice and snow, and every step on ice on the way to our car here made that prospect more sweet.
And, it rained. Every day at least a bit, some days quite a lot. There was a pretty steady wind. And the fog on some days made our favorite views less visible (OK, invisible).
So, why return? For many of the same reasons Saramago gives in the quote above. The Azores lived through a very difficult tourist-free time while the pandemic raged, and we wanted to support a culture we love. And yes, there’s a pattern here — my husband’s family background is in the Azores, as mine is in Sicily. That trip nine years ago was a family reunion-style celebration of his retirement, and our memories have been calling us back ever since.
We were sure many things had changed. Happily, many had changed for the better, including improved roads, new museums and upgraded hotels. Even in places we’d visited before, we found new delights.
We chose a hotel on a side of the island we hadn’t explored before, so there was plenty to experience that didn’t require sun and warmth. And, we were once again delighted by the intensely green fields, the peaceful pace, the delicious food and the gracious, warm people.
Quick travelog: The Azores is comprised of a nine-island archipelago that is an autonomous region of Portugal. Sao Miguel is the largest island and is home to the capital city, Ponta Delgada. The archipelago is in the middle of the jet stream, so it’s never really cold and never really hot. The volcanoes that created the archipelago are dormant, but their heat rests just below the surface, warming natural swimming pools and steam for cooking the island stew, cozido.
We could read books to gather the information we’ve learned by visiting in person: that the Azores produce fully half of mainland Portugal’s dairy supply; that Sao Miguel has Europe’s only tea plantation; that the Nordeste region of Sao Miguel is the home of the nearly extinct pirolo or Azorean bullfinch, found nowhere else on earth; that the 22 volcanoes once active on Sao Miguel left behind pristine lakes in their calderas.
Of course, I could have read about the delectable cheeses crafted in the Azores, particularly the famous Sao George cheese, but nothing quite beats tasting it in a cheese shop filled with the aromas of ripening curds. And then there’s the Azorean pineapple, grown in a unique centuries-old process inside greenhouses that produces a super-sweet, low-acid fruit that I could eat all day, and did eat every morning we were there. Not available at Crosby’s — you can’t get it anywhere but in the Azores.
If we’d stayed home, we would never have visited Ribeira Grande’s new contemporary art museum and admired the sea-inspired works of Azorean Portuguese artist Urbano, then realize on our way back to our room that his brilliant paintings adorn the walls of our hotel. We would never have chatted for an hour with the caretaker of the emigration museum, who emigrated to Fall River herself, only to return to the peace of her home island. And we never would have been blessed by the unexpected concert of two ethereal young voices rehearsing in a sound chamber like no other — a 15th-century Jesuit chapel whose nave is entirely made of hand-carved wood.
We always say we are never sad to return home — how could we be? Marblehead is one of the planet’s most beautiful, if not most perfect, places we’ve ever been, and our small comfortable home is just right for us.
There will come a time when age, means and mobility will curtail our ability to explore other beautiful places. I hope that when that time comes we are wise enough to be thankful for what we have and what we have seen. Until then, we will follow Saramago and continue to “start the journey anew.”
Marblehead resident Jo Ann Augeri Silva, a retired journalist, author, public relations professional and educator, was an editor of the Marblehead Reporter.
Jo Ann Augeri Silva
Marblehead resident Jo Ann Augeri Silva, a retired journalist, author, public relations professional and educator, was an editor of the Marblehead Reporter.
