Arrival in Portugal

October 5-6, 2023

Our exit from Grand Rapids went ultra-smoothly as friend and nieghbor, Greg, shuttled us to the airport, aquick flight to Philly, and a comfortably short layover in Philly before boarding AA to Lisbon. The plane was new, sleek and smooth. We thought we were in for any easy 7 hour overnight flight to Europe. About 2 hours after takeoff, though, Alice developed sudden and severe diarrhea. She made it to the bathroom, did not have to vomit,and spent the next several hours in the only position that she could be comfortable — kneeling on the floor in front of her seat laying her head on the seat. Somehow she knew what her body needed. I got some ginger ale for her and it went down well. Before we landed she said she felt fine, and I no longer had to think about us cancelling our hotel in Porto.

Out of the airport we took a ride share called Bolt to the train station . The ride cost 4 Euros and we were welcomed to an architecurally inviting station.

We found a cute llttle cafe and practiced our undrstanding of ordering coffee in Portuguese. “Garrrota” is something like a café cortado – a shot of coffee with a splace of milk, while a “Meio leite“ is a lot like a latte. We enjoyed both plus sandwiches. Then we did a quick tour of the station and waited at track 5.

Our train was the slow train to Porto, and took almost 4 hours with innumerable stops. We watched in amusement as customer after customer mixed up the seating system and had to confront each other to move to another car.

We snoozed on and off due so little sleep on the plane, and eventually we pulled into Lisbon. It was a mad house inside of the station, and we deiced to walk the 2 km to the Cathedral and try to find food on the way. We’d probably missed the early afternoon meal and a chance for a fixed price meal. We found a charming local cafeteria that was frequented only by neighborhood locals. I was glad to have studied Portuguese as the proprieter did not speak much English.

We laughed and tried some very typical local things, things than have to translation in the dictionary, even a strange fortified wine a little bit like Port wine , but called “Jeropiga”. Put that in your search engine.

After a restoring meal an pleasant banter with the proprieter, weheaded out on the crowded rush hour streets with our packs, and headed the 2 km to the cathedral. On the way we got our first taste of street life, the pleasant little shops, the tile walls, the neighborliness.

It didn’t take than long to come to the Cathedral of Porto.

Inside the Cathedral we were delighted to receive our shells and Camino passports.

Alice fills out her passport after I attached her shell by the red string to her pack.

Tired, we headed up some hills another 1.5 km to find our very cute and comfortable hotel. We are ready to start to official walk tomorrow, though it seemed like we already started when we walked all the way through the city.