We had to check out of the hotel by eleven, but since we were not going to go to the airport until six, we had the hotel hold our luggage. We decided to take the Hop on Hop off. We sat on the top open air part of the bus and it was hot. I did not have any sunscreen on, so my face, arms and part of my legs got sunburned. After riding the bus and returning back to our hotel we got our luggage and car and headed for the airport.
We were not parking in the airport garage because it was too expensive. We decided to use an offsite parking facility. The one I chose was inside with valet service. We pulled right inside the building and was greeted promptly. In less than five minutes we were on our way to the airport. We were flying on Iberia Airline. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15 PM. We were changing planes in Madrid and then flying on to Oporto, Portugal. The flight to Madrid was uneventful.
We had to go through immigration in Madrid, because it was the first Country in the Europe Union we set foot. So our passports were stamped in Spain instead of Portugal. We had a three hour layover in Madrid. When it was time to leave, we were flying on a small regional airline. We had to walk down stairs and get on a bus that drove out to where the plane was parked. Once there we put our carry on luggage on a cart and then climbed up stairs into the plane. This flight was only about an hour and we arrived in Oporto around 4:35 PM on Monday. Again when we landed we had to walk down stair, collect our carry on luggage and get on a bus to take us to the terminal.
We had to wait quite awhile to get our luggage. After collecting it, we went through the door that said “Nothing to declare”. There was an officer standing there and he looked at Jay’s luggage tag which we were coming from Miami and let us on through. Our driver was waiting for us and took us to our hotel.
