Portugal holiday part one

Blog ≫ 2026 ≫ Portugal holiday part one

Thu Aug 27

I'll just start with some contemporary notes I took at the beginning, this is starting with day minus one of the holiday:

Fairly relaxed day in London yesterday, a bit like a bonus day off holiday. Trying not to think about it as a waste, but we were waiting for the holiday to start. Planned to go to bookshop, but we all already had books. T2 bought a new card game with some of his holiday money. Thought about new holiday clothes, but didn't see anything. So to the pub! The Cow, we like it there. Stayed for two pints, then got Elizabeth line towards Heathrow. Nice and air conditioned and seems quite fast. Our route was to terminal 2 where the bus station is, and then a bus to our airport hotel, The Thistle. Noticed "special fares apply" if you get Liz line all the way, and there wasn't a lot waiting for us at the hotel, so no rush. Looked up Uber price from the last station before the special prices, just over a tenner, so surely saving us money. Found a pub online near by, and certainly spent all that we'd saved. I traded the opportunity for real ale for a pool table. Not my usual sort of pub but we didn't mind it, called The Captain Morgan something, fill this in later. Three games of pool, then Uber to The Thistle.

We had dinner booked in The Aviator restaurant that had a view of planes taking off. Menu sounded better than it was, but fine. Lots of vegan options. Rooms nice and comfortable, but not big. At least we had twor rooms. T2 slept in floor rather than share the bed with his bro though.

Fairly early to bed, up again at half three! Breakfast at Gordon Ramsey, and on to a maybe two-thirds full flight to Lisbon. Flight was on time. Child screaming in front when we got on, calmed down quickly. Man snoring loud, really loud, behind us, that's not me snoring.

I'm reading Simon Kernick's The Final Minute, an appropriate ¹ holiday thriller, I am happy to leave when I've finished it. Hoped to sleep on the flight, but no. Actually the two people next to me (I'm on the aisle seat of three, and the others are in the next three other seats across the aisle) just moved down the back of the plane where there are loads of empty seats. So I can spread out here! Tried to lie down but can't quite comfortably.

Not sure how we're getting from airport to hotel, an hour changing metro stops we think. Planning to go only to roof top pool today, not venturing far from hotel, Take it easy. Probably. I do need a good beer photo op for my friends asap.

The new automated airport security system is really really bad. Non EU types have to register first on machines. Big queue for this, because they turn them off to manage the next queue. Took about half hour to get to front of that. Then it turns out the kids can't use them, so had to join the manual queue. I'm through in the automated one, wife is still waiting with boys. They will not be happy when they get here. We have to do this on the way home too. Will put me off traveling for a while. Airports were bad enough before this. This is 100% a direct "benefit" of Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving. Two adults alone would have been through in only forty minutes. Wife on her own with her EU passport would have been through in five. I think they'll be a good two hours, doesn't seem to be moving. They can't be deliberately going slow though can they? As a huge queue should be building up behind them.

And back to the up to date bit, no longer the contemporary notes, we did eventually make it through passport control and to our hotel! We did not get metro and there was no roof-top pool, but that is coming in the next part. I will be transcribing over the next few days... so stay tuned.

Actually my next notes are from Thursday, and we have left this early on Tuesday morning so I'll have to go through my photos to remember what we did.

I originally wrote "good" here, it was not good.

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