Portugal - Day 1
Flying Out
It was 18 Aug 2020. Amidst all the confusion of the pandemic caused by Covid 19 we still decided to go ahead with our trip to Portugal. We had been looking forward to this trip since the lockdown in March.
Our original booking was from Gatwick, but the flight was rebooked from Heathrow, which was a blessing in disguise as it is a lot more convenient for us to get to Heathrow. We booked a local cab to pick us up at 6AM in the morning. Deepika woke up early and sorted everything out. All the packing was done, we loaded our luggage into the boot of the taxi and we were off, on our adventure.
At the airport, we had to wear face masks but everything was very smooth. The flight was on time and it was not completely full as you would normally expect. It was a short 2 hour flight to Faro. The time zone in Faro is the same as London. We reached there at about 10:30AM.
We had booked a car rental from the airport. We picked up the car from the designated pickup location. We were charged more than what we were supposed to be charged. LEARNING - Always book rental cars with bigger brands - Europcar, Hertz, Sixt etc. They might charge €100 more while booking but they turn out to be more cheaper than the smaller firms which cheat you out in the end.
Our plan was to pick up the car and drive up to Lisbon. The drive was about 3 hours. We got an automatic Opel car. It was small and not as powerful as we are used to but it was something to go by. The drive was a good one. There was no traffic on the roads and the scenery was very good. We drove past a lot of vegetation, and some very scenic valleys on the way. We had opted for the toll road. We were supposed to pick up a toll ticket from the green machine but we drove straight past without the ticket and we had to pay €41 instead of €21.
We stopped at a service station to fill up the car and we also sat down and had a nibble, as the girls were getting hungry. We then continued our journey. As we came closer to Lisbon, we drove over the iconic bridge. We could see the statue of Christ the redeemer (Lisbon version) from the car. We were stuck in the traffic over the bridge due to an accident, but we eventually reached our hotel.
We were staying at Holiday Inn, Lisbon. We checked in, and then went to the restaurant to have some food. We had pizzas and some drinks. After that the girls hit the swimming pool. They spent over 2 hours in the pool, while me and Deepika sat in the roof top, admiring the views.
In the evening we went for a stroll and explored the area in the vicinity of the hotel. We found a McDonalds, Burger King, a supermarket, a local park and a local market as well. The odd thing was the supermarket stopped selling alcohol after 8PM. So we just got some water and snacks and came back to our hotel.
We all were pretty exhausted and dozed off.
