This fall Pat and I planned a guided tour of the back roads of Portugal and Spain. The tour company (Overseas Adventure Travel – OAT) has been highly recommended by its prior customers. I did sound like an interesting tour traveling from Lisbon Portugal (southwest coast) to Madrid Spain in the center of Spain. The route was a southern one that included may small historical towns and the real gem was staying in old historic castles or monasteries. Of course they have been mostly updated!
It was a very, very long travel day. We will have to split this up over two days the next time. Anyway, a brief travel summary includes a commuter flight from Roanoke to DC then a six-hour layover at Dulles. That was the best connection that I could get at the time. We made the best of it and bought the pass to the United lounge. All the food and drink, plus room to read and play cards. Then the long 8-hour flight across the pond. Arrival time was 10:30 am local Lisbon time.
The customs arrival process was dreadful at Lisbon. The new facial recognition kiosks were all not working, so all flights from outside the EU were delayed getting through the 1 or 2 workers. It took over two hours to get out of the terminal and into a hell-bent taxi driver. This guy was the worst ever. I pledged to only use Uber from now on! All of our Uber rides have been great!
We stayed in an Airbnb flat in the historic Alfama district for two extra days to get acclimated before the 14-day tour begins. Really enjoyed this district!
In the next post, we begin our guided tour around Lisbon! It is always a long day flying to Europe, but this one seemed more challenging than ever. Thank goodness for two days to unwind. Thanks for following along and God Bless.