Azores Archipelago

The first post will take us to the Azores archipelago, a chain of islands located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (just imagine that) and an autonomous region of Portugal. Here are two beautiful postcards from Azores, albeit the stamps are Netherlands stamps, as this is a private swap:

UNESCO World Heritage Sites - Central Zone of the Town of Angra do Heroismo in the Azores

- Situated on one of the islands in the Azores archipelago, this was an obligatory port of call from the 15th century until the advent of the steamship in the 19th century. The 400-year-old San Sebastião and San João Baptista fortifications are unique examples of military architecture. Damaged by an earthquake in 1980, Angra is now being restored.
(http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/206)

UNESCO World Heritage Site - Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture
- The 987-ha site on the volcanic island of Pico, the second largest in the Azores archipelago, consists of a remarkable pattern of spaced-out, long linear walls running inland from, and parallel to, the rocky shore. The walls were built to protect the thousands of small, contiguous, rectangular plots (currais) from wind and seawater. Evidence of this viniculture, whose origins date back to the 15th century, is manifest in the extraordinary assembly of the fields, in houses and early 19th-century manor houses, in wine-cellars, churches and ports. The extraordinarily beautiful man-made landscape of the site is the best remaining area of a once much more widespread practice.
(http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1117)

Thank you Sanne for the swap.