We have six weeks of touring some cities and some longer term stays on the coast planned. We start out in Lisbon for four days, take the train north to Porto for three days then pick up a rental car. We will drive south to the Algarve for a couple of weeks then move on to Spain and the Costa del Sol for another couple of weeks.
From there it is Seville and Evora before returning briefly to Lisbon Portugal to fly to Barcelona in Spain. This is approximately where we will be travelling before flying to Barcelona (north-east Spain)
We have a few days to explore Barcelona, then it will be time to return home.
Our son-in-law Jay drove us to the airport and we arrived in lots of time to check in and have some supper before our Air Canada Rouge flight departed at 11:10 pm. The flight was on time and efficient but I would say that the service and comfort factors have been pared back to the absolute minimum. We are not tall people but I have never sat in such short seats as this. Pretty uncomfortable.
We both managed to get a couple of hours of sleep but when we arrived in Portugal we were greeted with a 90 minute line up for customs.
Luckily, we did clear inspection in a bit more than an hour and we were able to hook up with our driver to the apartment.
The owner/manager did show up within a few minutes of us arriving and we were welcomed to our two bedroom apartment in the Bairro Alto district. Ana spent at least a half hour showing and drawing maps of the hi lights of Lisbon for us to see. What a special welcome that also included a bottle of wine!
Monte the Moose really liked watching the action on the street below!
The cleaners hadn't been there yet as it was early in the day so we left on an initial exploratory walk. We are a block from one of the best overlooks in Lisbon so we took advantage of that.
This is also the first week of University so there were lots of Frosh doing their initiation. Interesting that all university students wear black gowns and ties even if they are drunk.
Next on the agenda was to get my mobile phone to work so we ventured several blocks to a Vodaphone store. Great city street views.
The walk to the phone store was downhill so we had to climb back to the apartment but it was rewarded by a mid-afternoon lunch and beer stop a few doors away from home.
It was time to pick up some very basic breakfast supplies so we went to the mini-mart. We had a terrible time finding milk. Apparently most is sold in tetra packs not in the refrigerated section. The wine however is not at LCBO prices.
We retreated to the apartment and relaxed until we figured it was time to go out for supper. We were tired but found a top floor Tapas bar just down the street that overlooked the harbour.
It was a great supper and sleep was not too far in the future.
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