Portugal
This year we are finally posting vacations. Our first real trip is Portugal. In 2002 Susan and I went to England and Scotland and this time we wanted to see some of Susan's roots. We will be flying through the Netherlands but won't be able to see anything other than the airport and what we can from the air.
We will be staying very near to Lisbon when we get to Portugal and plan to travel as much as we can until we need to return. We will be gone until the last day of April.
I'll post more as we progress on the trip.
We made it to Portugal via the Netherlands. What an interesting way to travel to Portugal. When we got off the plane in the Netherlands we had to go to another gate quite a ways from the arrival gate. It's also interesting that when we got off the plane, we were not in a controlled customs area. To get to our next plane, we had to go through customs as though we were already legal in the country. Our passports were stamped with Netherlands stamp and we were on our way to the next plane. The next plane was quite small compared to the first one and was full of people. Many of the obviously Portuguese. Two hours later we landed in Lisbon.
Flying into Lisbon is absolutely beautiful. We flew a complete circle around the city and could see all the coast line and bridges. The neighborhoods were obvious also. So many red tile roofs, it seemed like everybody has one.
Once we landed in Lisbon, we were off the plane through the back door and ushered onto a bus. When we exited the bus, we were in the main terminal and had two choices to exit. The gate to declare what we were bringing into the country and a gate for nothing to declare. Since we had nothing, we chose that gate and after passing through we were out of the terminal. No customs check or anything. We are here and nobody in the country knows.
