All 3 of us prefer to be at the airport earlier rather than later, so even though our flights weren’t until after midday, we set out at about 9am. We dropped our hire car at the correct place and then had a short walk to departures. The weather today was cold and drizzly, we remarked how lucky we have been with it all. Just before we came to Scotland, the UK experienced some very wild storms and lots of roads were closed. We managed to miss all of that, and were also fortunate that we didn’t encounter any black ice.

After dropping our bags we made our way through security and then found a place to order some food and drinks and wait for our respective flights. Scott’s plane boarded first so we said our goodbyes, thanking him for an awesome holiday together.

Teresa and Michele boarded the flight to Lisbon at 12:45 for a 1:15 take off. Once on the plane, after sitting for about a half hour, we were informed that there was an urgent repair required on the runway, which was holding all planes up. We did not take off until a quarter to 3. It was a hold up for whole airport and there was a long line of aeroplanes queued to take off, with many landing at the same time. It would have been quite the challenge to organise the backlog!

We landed into a very drizzly Lisbon just before 6pm. Despite a long bus ride from our disembark to the airport terminal, our experience from landing, collecting our bags and then locating our transfer was pretty quick and fuss free. The apartments we were staying at had been in touch with Teresa via WhatsApp and had organised our transfer with our driver Fernando, who also communicated through WhatsApp.

The drive from the airport to our apartment was about 30mins, and Fernando was very friendly and informative, recommending places to see and eat. Arriving at our very centralised accommodation, Rossio Apartments, we were amused to see that the entrance is right next door to a peep show!

Our room is clean & spacious, with two comfortable single beds side by side, and decent shower. Due to it being dark and wet outside we decided to stay close for dinner. We found a restaurant called Nicola and sat down for our first Portuguese meal. Fernando had told us that in Portugal the seafood is very good. Michele chose clams “Bulhão Pato” style, which was a sauce of olive oil, garlic, white wine, lemon & onion. Served with crusty bread…delicious! Teresa chose a prawn curry which looked lovely, however the prawns were a bit chewy and she found herself having food envy. We washed down our meals with glasses of green wine (vinho verde), a Portuguese wine from the Minho province and essentially means that the wine is made from young grapes…it was really good.

After dinner we walked just around the corner to the supermarket “Pingo Doce” to buy milk and for Michele to buy some Portuguese red wine and then headed back to our apartment. We had a quick FaceTime with Babcia & Barb and Michele was able to see her baby Basil. It was near 10pm by the time we said goodbye and we were ready for bed. Tomorrow we explore Lisbon. Boa noite!