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Camino Portuguese 21/22 April 2026. The Adventure Begins.


Tuesday 21 April 2026.
Today's the day. We were up and ready to go to the airport. We all arrived at Alison's place on Monday afternoon.  Checked our luggage and wondered why our bags were so heavy. It couldn't have been the lollies, muesli bars and chocolate.
Gary told us we were leaving at 9.30am so we would be ready, but we didn't need to leave until 10.30am . We were all ready at 9.30 so off we went to the airport.
We checked in with no line up, took the photo at the Sydney airport sign and went through scanning with no trouble at all.
Lunch at the airport near our gate so we didn't have to sit on those waiting gate seats and we were on our way. Premium Economy was definitely worth the cost.  7 and a half hours to Singapore,  1.5 hours waiting for our next flight, 13hrs 10 minutes to London so we tried to sleep,  then 1.5 hours waiting for our flight to Lisbon.  We bought a smoothie or coffee. Did you know that my Enhlush pounds from 7 years ago were too old and I couldn’t use them.
After the 2.5  flight to Lisbon , we lined up for the new scanning immigration system. Longest line yet. Took our photo, scanned our retina,  scanned our fingerprints- No Go to manual border control- the LONG line. Kim, Julie and myself all went to the long line. Alison went straight through to electronic entry. She went to the bathroom, pulled our luggage off the baggage claim, and sat for an hour waiting for us. She was the only one that passed.
We caught a taxi to our hotel, put our luggage in the luggage room as we had 2 hours until checkin. Out for lunch, 50 metres from our hotel, and across to the Paco do Rossio square. We negotiated with a tuk tuk tour guide for a 2 hour tour of the city. I wish I turned on my Strava as I really can't remember all the places he took us. He was so knowledgeable about the city history it was a great tour. I took a screenshot of my Google Timeline.
Checked into the Hotel Rossio Inn, went downstairs to the supermercado next door and bought things for breakfast and milk for tea, showered, and washed our clothes. Did we really want to go out to dinner, were we really hungry? No. Alison went back down to the supermercado for cheese and crackers, but came back with a small bucket of hot chicken wings enough for 2 each. Dinner was served. Good night everyone, have a great sleep.
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