This year’s choice for our international visit was Lisbon the capital city of Portugal. Most of us caught the 12:35 flight out of Luton, but Jerry and Fiona caught an earlier flight from Gatwick. We had managed to find Easyjet flights thus avoiding the need to use the dreaded Ryanair.
After some discussion before departure, it was decided to use the Aerobus for the transfer to our hotel. However on entering the arrivals concourse, we could see no signs for the Aerobus, and a queue at the tourist information desk. Little did we know, but queues would come to be a bit of a theme for the weekend.
Fortunately on exiting the building we spotted the Aerobus stop and a nice young man who sold us tickets with a group discount; the one–way fare was €2 – surely one of the cheapest transfers we have found at £1.42!
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, in this instance it was that the driver did not stop unless you rang the bell, and you couldn’t ring the bell if you didn’t know where you were. At first we thought the driver was shouting out the stops, but obviously, €2 was not enough to make him do this consistently. Although not good at stopping at bus stops, the bus did stop on other occasions, one of which found Barbara somewhat off balance and sent her for a dive in the aisle. Alan made a grab for her and managed to get a grip on her bra strap. Whilst this may have helped to reduce her trajectory to the rear, it left her somewhat lopsided up front!
After a while we determined that we had passed our stop so got off at the next stop. This was fortuitous, as without it, we would not have had the opportunity to partake in a Dungroamin Holidays speciality of dragging our suitcases though the streets in the searing heat! (Don’t forget when you buy a suitcase, you need to road test it for suitability for this Dungroamin experience.)
Fortunately, we found the hotel without going round in circles and without dying of dehydration.
The hotel had a street bar outside and it was no surprise that, after settling into our rooms, we congregated in the bar for a well–earned drink. This drink extended through the late afternoon to trying out the menu for our evening meal.
We were kept entertained by the activity in the building directly opposite the hotel, which was hosting a conference of one Portugal’s political parties and there were television cameras and reporters present.
