Do you feel you just have to get away from the proverbial rat race and all the bad news? Well, you can do a lot worse than the Portuguese Azores Islands. We have just returned from a delightful week in Ponta Delgada on São Miguel, the biggest of the nine islands. The islands that make up the Azorean Archipelago are more than 1 400 km west of Lisbon, so they are also relatively accessible to tourists from the US and Canada. It is not as warm as the Spanish Canary Islands, but is less commercialised and attracts a different type of tourist, mostly those who appreciate walking and whale watching.