Back in Portugal
Scot Free III
Frank & Anne
Fri 15 Aug 2025 08:00
Left home at midday and arrived back in Pavoa do Varzim at about 10pm, not without incident.
Megabus to Bristol Airport, despite its former reputation as low cost student travel, was fine and the bus was new. Our “reserved seats” although paid for, didn’t exist. All seats had reserved over them. We paid full adult fares online, although passengers boarding en route were heard asking for senior fares. ( not available online! why not?!)
Bristol Airport has had a huge amount of recent investment. The transport hub is very smart and efficient. Security should be very quick , no electronics or liquids need to be removed from bags. A’s hip and knee didn’t set the alarm off this time but her case had to be unpacked! Garlic salt was a culprit as was a brand new pilot book of the Atlantic coastline of Spain and Portugal. Apparently the super glossy finish of cover and pages was the problem. Both items had to be swabbed thoroughly for explosives and the security guy had a laugh saying yep even from Waitrose. Then, once repacked, A was free to go.
On arrival in Porto, F’s biometric Irish passport again couldn’t be read by the machine. By the time he discovered this, he was virtually last in the queue of the “rest”. The super shiny new plastic page was supposedly to blame. Technology!!
Discovered, not for the first time, that Bolt (similar to Uber) is not very accurate regarding pick up location. By the time we had been in touch with the driver, traipsed across a road, some grass, a tram line , then a duel carriageway to get to the dedicated parking area for Bolt, he had cancelled our trip , taken someone else and no other driver was available. So back to the terminal building via a safer route, for a very expensive regular taxi.
Arrived in Pavoa to discover the biggest festival of the year was on, the road outside the marina was closed and we had a lengthy walk to the pontoon. Very discordant church bells have been the highlight! A lot of loud music and queues for lunch in most restaurants.
Loo pump replaced as the first job today and 100 new Torlon ( expensive plastic) ball bearings laboriously fed into the mainsheet traveller so that it now runs smoothly again. Decks hosed down as everything covered in a film of dust, water tanks filled so all set for departure in the morning.