April 21, 2022
April 21, 2022 - Arrival to Porto via Lisboa
... LIS - OPO
Hotel: Peninsular Hotel, R. de Sá da Bandeira 21, 4000-433 Porto, Portugal €42
Now sitting in the ANA Airport lounge in Lisbon awaiting the flight at 440 pm to Porto. It is a good thing I didn't dawdle on the way to passport control. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in the lineup to get through so it took two hours to finally get my passport stamped. Some people in line were starting to panic thinking they would never make their connection, but fortunately staff finally called those with tight connections to a dedicated line that they opened.
Just before the customs lineup were the health authorities asking to see either the vaccine passport or negative PCR test results. By the way they asked, I think they might actually have accepted my Ontario vaxx passport but I wouldn't have chanced it. Customs just wanted the passport and simply asked how long I would be in the country and if I would be leaving the country or just staying in Portugal.
Then for the Priority Pass Lounge they said they needed the actual membership card... or QR code, which I was luckily able to get online. So, lots of red tape to prove this, that and everything else under the sun!
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With about an hour to go before boarding call, Gate 8B was announced for the flight to Porto. The furthest point to where I had been waiting, once I got there I recognized this as the spot from where I had flown to Faro in 2019. Seemingly smaller national flights.
The plane was not what I expected though was not disappointed. It looked to me like a Dash 8 but was a different named company, but I am guessing someone else bought out the Dash 8 maker and re-branded it. The main difference I noticed was that rather than boarding toward the front, they had reconfigured the doors so that boarding was from the rear of the plane.
As I boarded I asked one of the stewardesses how I would know if my bike was onboard. A baggage handler heard me and reassured me that it was, indeed, on the plane. The flight was a quick 50 minutes and though I could see ground occasionally, there was mostly very heavy cloud cover such that when the plane landed - the skies were dark grey and rain was falling.
Once inside I recognized the layout of the airport, and headed to the oversize luggage carousel and in minutes out came my bike, with the box looking fairly good after all the flights to get here. I quickly opened it up to be able to attach my wheel to the back of the box then rolled into the main concourse then downstairs and to the Metro ticket machines where a worker was helping people to buy their tickets. Out on the platform there were a lot of people but they helped me get the box into the train and away it zoomed into the heart of Porto.
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The train ride was about thirty minutes. The last stop was Trindade after which I had to go down a flight of stairs and find the yellow line for the next two stops to Sao Bento. In the meantime, my nice little wheel gadget had failed me. It initially worked really well but my internal plastic 'plate' was too small and it simply pulled through the softened cardboard box. I guess my initial idea of a larger board was a better one - or maybe even a larger sheet of plastic of some sort to keep it light. Either way, I had to carry the bike and box down from the airport to the Metro station then down the stairs then up the stairs then up the Sao Bento stairs then up the street to my hotel. In the rain.
I made it. On the street above the Metro station, and across the street from the glorious Sao Bento train station, I could see up another street to the sign of my hotel about 100m away. That was a blessing I knew would be even better once I arrived and I was right.
At the hotel I dragged in the box then just caught my breath as I checked in. The desk person initially wanted me to leave the box in the lobby but I told him that all of my luggage and belongings were inside and I would need to unload them first. Ok, he said. I understand their concern. I sometimes see it on cycle touring blogs that people act irresponsibly in their hotel, leaving a mess and sometimes even using hotel towels to clean off their grimey bike. I cannot imagine doing this, mind you, these last two years we have seen many actions by some people that I cannot imagine doing. Whatever they do, I do not use hotel towels, my bike is clean, and I am extremely careful not to do any harm to my accommodations.
I had initially thought that once I was in the hotel I would head out for a bit of exploring. By now it was around 8 pm and I had been travelling for about 24 hours. Even though I had slept on the plane, I was still tired. I had eaten a lot all day so I was not really hungry, either, so when I lay down 'for a few minutes' the next time I checked it was 230 am. 'When in Rome, a bird is worth two in the bush.'
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