Grab your atlas. Where are the Azores located? To be precise: “in the middle of nowhere.” 739 miles west of Lisbon, 1264 miles east of America. If you sail directly north from Faial island, you’ll first encounter Greenland. Sail directly south, and after many weeks you’ll hit Antarctica. Nothing but water along the way. So, the middle of nowhere.
Due to this (impossible) location, it wasn’t until 1427 that the archipelago was discovered by its neighbors. But after that, it quickly became the perfect base for Portuguese explorers heading west, particularly to Newfoundland.
Politically, the Azores belong to Portugal and thus to Europe. Geologically, they are completely unique. They lie on their own micro-plate between the European, African, and American plates. And where tectonic plates meet, volcanoes arise, many volcanoes…
At 1 cm per year, the Azores micro-plate pushes these 3 gigantic continental plates apart, causing the islands to become even more remote from everything.
A perfect place, then, to drift around relaxed for a few weeks.
