Trip Day 7 - off to Portugal

Sunday June 28

Packing to leave is always easier because you only have to gather your things. So that was quickly done  but our schedule this morning was a bit tight. 

Windsor has now a shared parish of 4 churches and the combined Sunday service takes place every Sunday just in one of them. This Sunday unfortunately the service was not at St. Stephens where the family always worshipped but at the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist (very close to the castle at top of the town). One of the family friends and his wife was going to pick us up at 9:30 am to bring us with the car there. 

I can't believe that I totally forgot my phone/camera. So unfortunately no photos from the inside. The photo from the outside I "stole" from the internet. 

We were also brought home again which was great because we could finish the packing. Jane had made reservations for the Sunday lunch at the Bexley Arms. That happened often when we were visiting ... lunch there because it was right on the way home.

We skipped dessert because we were running out of time. Windsor Taxi was ordered for 1:30 pm to bring us to Heathrow and was right on time. 

Again I was not very good with taking photos. There is a brief moment on this road where you have a nice view to see Windsor Castle. 

It is always hurry up and wait. We had booked the whole trip with United Airlines but this next part was with TAP Portugal. I had not been able to check-in online, probably not because neither US or British passports are EU passports, since England had left the EU. This means we have to do some sort of registration now. So at the airport went to the TAP counter and a nice lady did it for us. 

Suitecases gone and through security etc we now had nothing else to take care of but wait. Everything had been really fast and easy but one never knows.

Time to take care of a liquid intake. In Heathrow you have to wait in a common area because they never announce the gate number your plane is leaving from until a certain time before.  We wandered around a little. There didn't seem to be a good place without a long line to get in. This was more of a self-serve place but it was very good and suited us just fine.

At 16:25 we were finally seated in the plane. Just before boarding I took a look (don't know why not earlier) and noticed that we did not sit together. No idea how that happened. It would have been ok for the relatively short flight (not quite 3 hours) but the stewardess just insisted of taking care of it. 

I had a window seat now thanks to a lovely young couple who still could sit next to each other but two aisle seats rather then a middle and an aisle. All the days we were at Jane's we heard the planes fly really low over her house. So I know they are flying very low over Windsor right now (depending on the weather) so I was thrilled when I looked out and there was Windsor Castle. Can you see it? And the Longwalk? It made me so happy that I captured these two photos. Ha-ha, I am so easy to please. 

I took the following 3 photos later when I saw we were flying along the coast. Is it Spain? Is it Portugal? Is it Porto where we start our river cruise. 

When we landed I got excited again. We were here in Lisbon twice before. I remember the long red bridge to the right and the Jesus statue just before going over the bridge. You might want to see the Lisbon photos in THIS BLOG from 2024. If you want to see all Lisbon photos from the trip click "newer blogs" when you come to the bottom of each. We did it just now when I was writing this blog and enjoyed it.

Sometimes it was a bumpy flight and the two little children in the row in front of us were very loud and misbehaving and the grandmother next to them not taking proper care of them but otherwise it was good and we landed almost on time. The new situation about passcontrolle was not as bad as it sounded because there was always a person to help us with the machines and we were done in no time. Our suitcases took also a little while to arrive but at least we didn't have to worry about how to get to the hotel. 

When we booked this hotel, making sure that it was the one we were staying with the trip company there we also asked about service from the airport. We were able to arrange something and were met at the airport by Miguel with a sign with our name. He was terrific, very polite and even had bottled water for us in the car. 

Checking in was pleasant too and the room is very nice. After settling we went to the 12th floor bar. We tried to sit outside, took a couple of photos but decided it was more comfortable inside. 

We were so thirsty. More thirsty than hungry.

Since we were not really hungry and the friendly waiter told us that the sandwich is so much and good for sharing, that is what we did. It was delicious. And the fries came the German way with mayonaise. Yeah!

In the bar was also a TV going with a live FIFA game. Canada won at the (almost) last minute. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow we still have a "free" day until 6 pm when we have the first travelers meeting with our trip leader. We will just chill and see what we feel like doing. All is good. We are excited.