Bye Bye Portugal

So this trip was piece-mealed together after we got the great idea to take a cruise from Lisbon to Rome. Why that particular cruise??? Well, we were able to book flights from Fresno to Lisbon and home from Rome to Fresno … all with our accumulated air miles. The only trouble was, after we started looking at the cruise more closely, we didn’t like it. So, we just built this trip within those travel parameters. 

So today was a travel day, the day to get to Rome. We went  Pico - Terceira - Lisbon - Rome.  Since we had to come to Rome to get home anyway, we decided to stay two full days in Rome. Today was kind of a wasted day, but beggars can’t be choosers. 

Since we didn’t book flights all together, and our island hops were on a different airline than the flights to and from Lisbon, we had a close call on Terceira. After landing we had to get our bags and re-check-in for the next flight.  Scary sight … they had finished and closed the check-in desk for TAP (our flight).  Fortunately there was a SATA employee next to them. She helped us… she called and got permission to print out boarding passes. As luck would have it, our flight was a little bit late anyway … but we sure are glad that employee was there and willing to help us check-in. 



BTW — this was the second tiniest airport we’ve ever been (Pico was smaller). That helped a little. 

We made it to Lisbon and it was meal time. I know it sounds crazy but we had McDonald’s … and a large beer. Maybe this is our first McDonald’s in a foreign country — Kristi thinks we tried it in Guatemala — Jim can’t remember that long ago. It wasn’t quite as greasy and we didn’t feel too disappointed afterwords. But maybe the beer helped with that. 😂



Our flight left an hour late, but after that it was a quick 2 1/2 hours to Rome. We are staying in this very old building … maybe one star … but it was the right price and it’s right in the middle of everything.  We got here really late so it will likely be a late start tomorrow. Buona notte!

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