The restaurants are modestly priced. The language is Portuguese, but many locals, especially in the main towns, speak some English. Foreign credit cards can be used at ATMs, which use several languages, to get escudos. The main office of the Azores Regional Tourist Board is on Faial Island. The weather is moody.
Locals say, with some pride, that it's possible to experience all four seasons in one day.
Driving rain gives way to scorching sunshine, snow whitens the highest peaks in winter, and the sea breeze carries an exhilarating freshness. In the popular harbor at Horta on Faial Island, yachtsmen gather to swap yarns at Peter's Cafe. The place is brightly decorated with more than a thousand paintings on local dark stone, each one fashioned by the crew of a visiting yacht. By turns, sometimes within hours, the Azores can evoke Ireland's windswept Atlantic coast, springtime alpine meadows, baking tropical islands or misty Scottish highlands. The weather is everything but predictable.