Thirsty Thursdays: Pub Crawl in Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Island, The Azores

In the glory days before COVID arrived I used to love doing pub crawls. I even helped set up the first organised pub crawl in Bishkek Kyrgyzstan in 2016 and did a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London and a superb pub crawl in Gdansk, Poland. But COVID closed the bars and that avenue of pleasure was gone. It took a while for me to get back into the pub crawl lifestyle again.

Here are some of my favourite pub crawls from days gone by:
Monopoly Pub Crawl, London, England
Happy J Pub Crawl, Christchurch, New Zealand
Buenos Aires Pub Crawl, Argentina
Gdańsk Pub Crawl, Poland
Abraham Pub Crawl, Jerusalem, Israel

In April 2022, I finally arrived in The Azores. I stayed at the Azor Azul Hostel in Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island. As well as touring the sights of Ponta Delgada, I was keen to do a pub crawl and I came across one set up by Danish lad Tomasz. Here’s the Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/Ponta-Delgada-International-Pubcrawl-112923314497307/

Other things I did in The Azores were to visit an abandoned hotel, head to the mountains, tour the sights of Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island, swim in the Atlantic Ocean and a quad tour to Sete Cidades. The quad tour was fantastic.

It was on my second night here, that I teamed up with Tomasz for the pub crawl as of course, I didn’t want to do it the night before quad biking! However, in this article, I will actually cover all the bars I visited in Ponta Delgada, The Azores, not just those normally included in the pub crawl.

1.Cafe Central

This is the oldest cafe in the city and hence why I really wanted to put this one first. It’s a bar, cafe, restaurant and ice cream joint all in one. It’s a good place to get your bearings in the city. It has white walls with yellow trim and three beers on tap, including local Especial.

2.Azores Forever

I met Tomasz in here as this is the bar where he generally kicks off the pub crawl from. Azores Forever is a small cosy bar with the local Azores beer, Especial in bottles plus Super Bock on tap. I had a bottle of Especial for 1.70 Euros.

3.Trianon

Trianon is a friendly bar on a small pedestrian street in the city centre. It serves beer on tap, freshly baked bread and cakes, plus Tomasz encourages me to try the local liquer here – Aguardente. This reminds me of a rum I had in Guasca, Colombia on New Year’s Eve 2010 with my mate Felipe. We had a bottled beer in here too.

There is craft beer here too, but I stick to the local Especial beer.

4.Ta Gente

Ta Gente is the posh, upmarket dear bar on the list, well there had to be one. They have a rum in here that is 69%. Tomasz and I go for it!

I also ate in here, choosing the exquisite, poshest meal combination of that trip so far. This is…

5.Ned Kelly’s Irish Pub

We add in Ned Kelly’s as the token Irish Pub on the crawl. It’s co owned by a Northern Irishman Evan and a Southern Irishman Kevin. I chatted away to the Belfast Boy but since we were on a pub crawl, it was a quick Guinness and then off we went. It’s textbook – green and white on the outside and wooden bar inside with Irish whiskey and the black stuff.

This was my only pint of Guinness in my entire time in The Azores. The place also does food, shows live sport and has Wi-Fi.

6.Mascote Bar (Local with Especial)

Probably the coolest little local bar on the list was this one. I had my first local beer here, Especial, in the daytime and it was chilled out and with Wi-Fi.

7.Cais Da Sardinha (The Cafe on Sea)

I loved this bar as it had good coffee and beer, was on the seafront and had free Wi-Fi. I could really enjoy the views over the Atlantic Ocean while sipping and blogging to my heart’s content.

A cappuccino was 2 Euros.

8.Cafe Clipper 1944 (Football bar)

Late afternoon on my last evening in The Azores, I popped into a football bar which was showing the FC Porto match on the screen. This was called Cafe Clipper and was very cheap and very local – of course they all spoke Portuguese and not much English but it was still great.

9.CC Lounge And Bar (Sangria bar)

After watching a training session at the local football stadium, I popped into “the loke” which was the CC Lounge And Bar which had Sangria on tap, as a special offer of 1.2 Euros a glass, so I indulged…along with a packet of Perola Da Ilha crisps.

10.Clube Uniao Micaelense

I was actually out in the bars and cafes of Ponta Delgada three nights in a row and one night I headed to two local bars with Gerard and Sara, my dorm mates at the Azor Azul Hostel in Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Island. We had tap beer in here at Clube Uniao Micaelense.

11.Tropical Neptune Shot bar

In here, we had a local craft beer, my only time to drink craft beer in The Azores. We also noticed they had shots called Volcanoes at Tropical Neptune, so we had them. I also drank here with my dorm buddies Gerard (from Republic of Ireland) and Sara (from Slovenia).

These actually looked like volcanoes and we had a brace each as it’s a speciality shot bar.

12.Ce La Vi

Ce La Vi was the last pub on the actual pub crawl, it was outdoor and we had cold bottled beer here.

I only scratched the surface of the bars in Ponta Delgada but it is definitely a cool chilled out city for a night on the rip.

To get in touch with Tomasz and organise a pub crawl, go here…

What’s App – +351 911 931 020
Email – [email protected]
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080213572669

I just realised that I used to take loads of videos on my pubc crawls – usually one per bar yet on this trip, I only made ONE video in a bar in Ponta Delgada! I almost couldn’t believe it, given the amount of bars I was in. Bizarrely I also only took 20 videos in 3 days in The Azores, that’s probably my lowest ever for such a trip. I took that only video in Ta Gente, here is my only video from the bars of Ponta Delgada: