Spurred on by the noblest of motives such as what would happen if one's rivals swindled foreign natives out of their riches, or even worse, converted them to a corrupt faith, efforts quickly focussed on making sure that these things didn't happen - by getting out there to do it first, naturally. After all it was the duty of every righteous man to protect the world's innocents from his greedy and godless neighbours.
Monument to Prince Henry the Navigator and the Age of Discovery (1400-1700), Lisbon
For some time, observers had noticed exasperating differences brewing between the cousins who headed the great houses of Europe. As childlike kingdoms coalesced into teenage nations, each groped to find their own identities and in doing so, started to assert a national character. The English started perfecting the arts of bashful discretion, apology and self-deprication, inventing a whole new range of lame excuses such as;
"Absolutely not ! Whatever would the servants say ?"
Meanwhile the French tried extolling virtues such as superiority and independence, which were ultimately more aspired-than-acquired. They were increasingly given to boasts of;
"Nobody Does it Better",
followed by loud declarations of;
"Liberte, Egalite, Stubbornitee".
Over the centuries this attitude would make them deeply popular again and again with whole handfuls of people in the remotest parts of Europe - and that was before they started chopping people's heads off.
The Germans invariably exulted pragmatism, eg; why make new words when we can combine the excellent words we already have ? In time, this love of the familar would give Germany the 39 letter whopper;
'Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften', meaning simply 'insurer'.
Perhaps inevitably the instruction manual for a German fridge now weighs 3 times more than the fridge itself and is more than twice the size.
Given these worrying European trends, explorers started to wonder just how different people might be who lived beyond The Med. How civilised could people really be if they had never wept at a Greek tragedy, seen their friends crucified by the authority of Rome or sought redemption in a holy crusade ?
Sao Jorge, 4th of 9 Azorian islands; rugged slopes draped in lush vegetation
Putting such doubts aside, the first Europeans finally resolved to sail down the west coast of Africa in the early 1400s. It was the first time anyone had gone to seek out new life and new civilisations since Hanno had reportedly left Carthage in search of the final frontier about 2000 years earlier - and quite probably never returned. Spain quickly claimed the low-hanging fruit, The Canary Islands, forcing explorers to venture much further into the great unknown. Early finds included Porto Santo and Madeira, barely 700km (430mi) from the Moroccan coast. However, even in those days, these islands would have been dismissed as small potatoes - if only the potato had been known at the time.
After tirelessly trawling the vast and largely empty North Atlantic, the Azores were finally discovered in 1427, some 1400km (850mi) west of Lisbon and, unknown to anyone, only 1900km (1,200mi) east of Newfoundland. It should be noted that although credit for the islands' discovery goes to the Portuguese, the mouse population of the Azores shows marked affinities for strong alcohol, rainy mountains, hurried casual sex and bleak crime dramas in which the characters speak very little dialogue. DNA results subsequently confirmed the obvious; that the mice are in fact of Scandinavian origin having probably arrived with early Vikings.
In round numbers, much of the Atlantic Ocean is about 4km (2.5mi) deep. From this depth the sea bed beneath the Azores has lifted upwards 2km. Volcanoes have then pushed a further 2km to sea level and, in the case of Mt Pico, reached a further 2km into the sky.
Mount Pico on Pico Island.
At 2,350m (7,700ft) it is Portugal's highest mountain, even though it is not in Portugal
Scattered across 600km (375mi) of open ocean, the 9 islands emerged from the depths, one by one, over the last 8 million years. When settlement started in 1432, nobody could foresee that within one lifetime a lush but empty archipelago, whose largest island measured only 65km (40mi) and with no resources to speak of, would become the world's most important staging post for supplies and shelter for untold hundreds and thousands of vessels sailing between the Old and New Worlds.
A monument to commemorate 500 years of settlement on Monte Brasil, Angra, Terceira Island
Since the islands were settled slowly over 200 years, each has its own history and character. What they all share are high mountainous interiors formed by chains or clusters of countless volcanic cones. The gradients of the mountain tracks which wind around these cones often exceed 45 degrees, forcing the most polite visitors to shriek expletives as they pray to their god that they don't burn through the last of their brake pads. Meanwhile huge numbers of beef cows happily grazing the highest peaks are curiously amused to watch terrified motorists nervously negotiate the bends and slopes with their lives flashing before their eyes.
The hills are alive with the sound of moo-sic.... and terrified motorists
The craters inside the cones have often collapsed holding lakes of collected rainwater and condensed cloud, which overflows as streams during heavy downpours. Perhaps uniquely Terceira Island offers the possibility to descend into a volcanic vent shaft from which the molten rock drained away, leaving an empty chimney supporting its own natural garden wall.
Algar do Carvao on Terceira Island,
A volcanic chimney left empty after molten rock drained out through the hillside
Moving down from the peaks, the slopes reduce to a mere 30 degrees which emboldens the locals to zip around the country lanes with a confidence bordering on suicidal. Invariably they do this in scraped, dented and patched-up French bangers. Every island appears to have become a nursing home for French cars built from the 1980s onwards; they are brought here at the end of their lives to finally live the dream which we were sold in the TV commercials - joyously zooming around uncluttered mountain passes, without traffic jams, speed limits, road signs or police, under clear blue skies as the sun sets across a shimmering silver sea.
These lesser slopes provide pasture for dairy cows which give the islands some self sufficiency in dairy produce. The mid-levels are arguably the most beautiful parts of the islands, being criss-crossed by empty winding roads, lined with endless kilometers of wild blue and pink hydrangea bushes; to one side the mountain tops vanish up into the clouds while on other the countryside flattens out to the sea.
Most of the islands' towns and villages are dotted around the coasts and linked by coastal ring roads. Here the land almost flattens, before a sheer drop of 60m over dramatic cliffs into the sea. Crops such as corn, grain and figs are still grown on the coastal lowlands for domestic use while sugar and grapes have been grown for export and winemaking. At only 250,000 years old, Pico Island was so new as to have very little fertile topsoil when it was settled. Each vineyard had to import barrels of topsoil ferried over in ships from neighboring Faial Island to fill channels split open by hammer and chisel through the bassalt in which to plant the first vines. Conclusive proof that winemaking really is not only a labour of love but also hard labour.
Crops are farmed on land which almost flattens out before a steep drop to the sea.
Every so often around the coast there are locations where the bassalt rock outcrops form natural reefs which restrain the waves and currents of the open sea, providing safe lagoons for swimming and diving. Any time the sun appears, these natural pools together with the adjacent cafes, bars and restaurants become a buzzing social nexus for anyone who can find an excuse for not doing something else.
Such places offer the opportunity to kick back with a coffee to exchange small-talk with whoever happens to sit next to you. A local ex-whale hunter will reminisce about the gradual decline of his livelihood which prompted him to go to the US to work construction. Retired plastic surgeons will tell you about their prizewinning chihuahuas in California. A crab-fishing heiresses will tell you about the business empire her husband built in Alaska. They are living proof that no matter how far and wide an Azorean may travel, they always seem to return home eventually. Quite aside from the rugged, natural beauty that the islands still offer, people who make the Azores their home do so because of what the islands do not offer; traffic, congestion, pollution, plastic waste, advertising billboards, crowds, noise, queues, shopping malls, franchised restaurants, chain stores, mass tourism, indifferent service and a gradual erosion of their cultural identity.
When set against the background of everything which followed, the discovery of the Azores in many ways marked the end of the innocence of noble exploration and the start of something much darker. By good fortune these islands were uninhabited when discovered, so the price of their settlement was paid for by the perseverance of the first settlers. By comparison, the cost of Europe's 'discoveries' of the New World and the African coast were largely paid for by the indigenous populations as they were offered Christianity, civilisation and 'protection' in exchange for their land, gold and free labour - negotiated at the fiery end of a musket, of course. And the rest, as they say, is history.
For anyone cherishing notions of the Earth being created in 7 days, the Azores are in fact new enough to pass as one of the final touches of any Intelligent Designer. Indeed these islands offer the perfect location to comfortably host the Old Testament's Garden of Eden. With its quiet, isolated location, warm, sub-tropical climate fed from the Gulf of Mexico and most importantly, its sheer abundance of fig trees, the Azores offer an earthly paradise where a Creator's First Couple could potentially be left alone to enjoy a full and virtuous life without sin. Adam and Eve could have lived here totally safe from temptation, especially since the first apples to appear on earth would eventually do so way over in Kazakstan.
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