Today I start the San Bento Family Trip blog. The purpose of this blog is to share with family plans for our trip to the Azores and Europe and the family history, which is at the center of the reason for the adventure. The reason that it’s called San Bento is because Cindy and My Great Grandfather, is Marianno de San Bento based on some research that I’ll discuss in another post. So maybe we aren’t da Silvas but San Bentos. The background picture was taken on San Miguel Island in the Azores.
We plan to visit the Azores Islands and some of us will travel around Europe. The Cook and Viera families are all invited for whomever can make it. Some may want to just do the Azores part of the trip while others may also want to do the European part of the trip.
Below is an email that I sent to Erin (Cook) Wood answering some questions that she had. I thought we all might benefit from the info. Let me emphasize that these are preliminary plans. Nothing is written in stone except for the plane tickets Cindy, Theron, Gayle and I have booked. The dates are Sep. 13-26, 2014 for our roundtrip from Boston to the Azores and Sep. 19-26, 2014 for the roundtrip from the Azores to Frankfurt.
In the Azores we plan to stay on San Miguel island, where several of our ancestors are from. We are planning on using Vacation Rental By Owners (vrbo.com) to find a house where we can stay for the 6 days. We plan to rent cars to tour the island.
It’s possible to island hop. There is one island close to San Miguel, Santa Maria, which can be reached by a ferry ride. We have one family line of our ancestors from that island. Another group of islands, the central islands, have to be flown to and then can be reached by ferry. We have several family lines from the central islands of Faial and San Jorge. So those that can afford it can island hop, the rest can just enjoy San Miguel.
As for Europe, we are flying into Frankfurt, near where Spencer lives. We will primarily stay in hotels in Europe because we will be moving around nearly every day. We plan to stay a night or so in Heidelberg, then make our way to Luxembourg by rental car, stopping in Belgium on our way to Paris, where we will probably stay a night or three. For those that want to, we will make a day trip to the WWII beaches of Normandy. Those that don’t, will enjoy Paris.
Leaving Paris, we will head towards Strasbourg and Stuttgart(a Porsche factory there), passing through the Black Forest. Then we will make our way north back to fly out of Frankfurt. Europe will be a whirlwind of driving and enjoying cities along the way. It will be a way to see a several countries but will be somewhat grueling. We will travel a total of 1,000 miles, making a circle through Germany, Luxemburg, Belgium, France and back through Germany.
Nothing is written in stone. Everything is open for discussion. So your input will be very appreciated.
As far as costs, Here is a very basic estimate
Airfare roundtrip from Boston to Azores: $650
Airfare roundtrip from Azores to Frankfurt: $375
Airfare roundtrip from Ponta Delgada to Central Islands: $200/person
Ferries to other islands from $20 to $50 per person
House on San Miguel for 6 days: $800 for 8 people - $100/per person
Hotels in Europe, approx. $100 per couple per night for 6 nights: $600
Rental cars, $50/day*12 days/5 people: $120/person
So pick the itinerary you want and add up from there.
The more input and comments the better planning we can accomplish. The intrepid family history sleuths have finally made the jump across the pond meaning 2 records have originating from the Azores ties two of the known ancestors. This was such a long time coming and Al will explain in further detail.
ReplyDeleteSo excited!! :)
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