In transit from Porto, Portugal to Cirencester, UK

---

Today it was time to leave Portugal behind us and fly to the UK. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Portugal and have seen some stunning sites and sights. Porto has a rail connection to the airport (unlike Melbourne!) so we ‘could’ have taken the train to the airport. We decided to do it the easy way though and booked an Uber. Without luggage the train would be fine, but with suitcases and cobbled streets it’s a bit difficult.

Our Uber driver arrived within a couple of minutes of booking him and had us out to the airport in good time. We allowed time for traffic problems but had a smooth run out arriving well before check-in opened. We weren’t first there though! We lined up behind the people who were already waiting for the British Airways counters to open.

For ages no-one was game to enter the taped area, we all just sort of hovered in the general area in front of the counters designated for the BA flight to Heathrow. Eventually those at the head of the queue decided to go into the taped corral … and everyone else followed like cattle, ha, ha. No sooner had we done that than a check-in clerk arrived and herded us all back our again so that he could rearrange the tape to his liking? In the process we ended up much further back in the queue, but decided it wasn’t going to make any difference to us as Bernie already organised our seat allocation for this flight.

After checking in our cases, we made our way through security screening and immigration. As per usual Bernie’s bag was selected for additional screening! We actually had to be processed by an immigration clerk and we received a stamp recording our departure from Portugal. Passport stamps are getting to be less and less common on our travels.

We had decided that we would have overpriced and terrible airport food for breakfast and we were talking about making it bacon and egg muffins from Burger King (Hungry Jack’s) but … Burger King was closed! We settled on a couple of door stopper croque monsieur sandwiches from the café next door. These things were HUGE and loaded with caramelized onions and so much cheese!

There was no seating near our gate, so we went back upstairs to sit for a while until flight time. We used the toilet upstairs before heading down to our gate. Very ordinary! It was only 9.15am and there was no paper in the ladies. Luckily, I was still carrying my trusty wad of toilet paper!

Downstairs at our gate we were loaded onto buses and driven out to where our BA plane was parked on the tarmac. We were fully loaded early and able to start taxiing to the runway about ten minutes before our departure time. This meant that we were actually airborne about two minutes after our 10.10am flight time.

We had a smooth flight over the Bay of Biscay and entered England flying over the Isle of Wight before going into a holding pattern over Heathrow. After a couple of circuits, we were able to land and then we taxied around the tarmac adjacent to the aerobridges twice while we waited for a space to open up.

Using our e-passports we made it to the baggage carousel in record time arriving before there were any bags on it. After the ridiculously long wait for our bags when we arrived in Lisbon, we were very happy when our bags were amongst the first out on this flight. Suitcases in tow we headed out to the bus stop designated for the car hire shuttle bus. We arrived at the stop at the same time as the bus, so we were whisked away to Europcar pronto.

No queuing at Europcar either. Wow, one of our smoothest quickest arrivals ever. Then the clerk stated the upsell trying to convince Bernie to upgrade from a compact sedan to a Lexus for more than a £1,000!!! No, Bernie said, I don’t need to upgrade to a larger car, a compact sedan will be just fine. So, he dropped the price to £600 which averaged over 14 days of car hire was more reasonable. So, we’re driving around the UK in a Lexus hybrid for the next two weeks. Bernie suspects that it suits them to have the vehicle relocated to Manchester?? With it being a hybrid, we might save £600 in fuel costs??

Thanks to SatNav we were out of Heathrow and onto the M4 heading west without any drama at all. We motored along the M4 until we reached the Services at Reading where we stopped for a late lunch of pretty average sandwiches from M&S Simply Food. We also splurged on a new road atlas as it is ages since we purchased a new road atlas for the UK.

I used the conveniences while were at the Services stop and very weird they were too. The first couple I went into the lid was up and there was waste in the bowl. Eeuuw! So, I went to one with the lid down and … I could not work out how to open it. What? In the end I had to use one that someone had obviously already peed in. Needs must! Then I worked out that you can’t access the flushing button until the lid is down and the fan-dangled lid creates a seal so that the toilet vacuum flushes … like an airline toilet. Judging by the number of toilets with waste in them hardly anyone understands how they work. I still have no idea you open the lid??!! At least I flushed though!!!

We continued on the M4 until south of Swindon where we turned north onto the A419 heading for Cirencester. We arrived a bit before our appointed check-in time so drove into the town centre. After parking the Lexus we proceeded on foot. Pretty much the first shop we found in Cirencester was a gelato shop!! It’s a bit like we can sniff out gelato like a pair of truffle pigs.

After a quick circuit around town getting our bearings, we made our way back to The Cotswold Hare B&B to check-in. Bernie has done well again with his choice of accommodation for us. We will be very comfortable here for the next six nights.

For dinner tonight we ventured down to The Fleece pub where we enjoyed a lovely meal on a very warm summer’s evening. It’s so warm we feel like we are still in Portugal.



Steps: 10,824 (7.19 kms)

---

Comments

[Dancing Dave]

St John the Baptist
Absolutely stunning. I have posted this in TB's "Cathedrals, grand churches, mosques & places of worship" thread in the Photography Forum. Check 'em out.