We awoke at 6 am, bags all packed and jittery because of a long day of uncertain travel ahead. The day before, we had walked to the bus station to plan our exit strategy. A handful of police guarded the door questioning every person about what their intention of travel was. No one is allowed to leave the city without a good reason. They let us enter the station to buy tickets for our departure, but there was neither a bus nor train option into Portugal, to our dismay. The usual routes are not running during the lockdown.
Our only other option was to fly out with a super long layover in Madrid—the COVID hotspot we were trying to avoid on this trip. Figuring it's better not to risk being stuck, we opted for the long flight with the prerequisite that the family had to listen to my long COVID speech about being extra, extra careful on the plane and in the airport!!
Upon checking into our flight at the Granada airport, the ticketing agent said we could not fly to Portugal. Even though online entry info to EU countries is confusing, we read we could enter if we've been in the EU for over 14 days, like we did in Italy and Spain. While Clint and I took a sidebar to discuss our very limited options, our agent hovered over a computer screen with another agent for a few minutes. We decided it was probably in our best interest to get to the major hub of Madrid, so we'd have more options to fly somewhere— anywhere that would take us! When we went up to the counter to say we still wanted to continue with our flight, the agent said we WERE allowed to enter Portugal. She and her cohort read the rules online and determined that it was ok for us to enter. Phew!
Turns out, we didn't have to spend much time in the COVID hotspot because our flight was delayed three hours due to fog. We spent our layover time on the frontend in Granada. Once we arrived in Madrid (awesome airport, by the way!) and were about to board the plane to Lisbon, the gate's check-in agent said we could not enter Portugal. With our tickets in hand, we gave one last plea stating that we are allowed because we are not coming from the US and have been in the Schengen for two months. She shrugged her shoulders, sighed, and just said, "Ok." Relieved, we boarded the plane but weren't in the clear yet. We didn't know what we would encounter at the Lisbon airport. We arrived nervous as we turned every corner, waiting for a checkpoint. But, before we knew it, we were outside standing on Portuguese concrete. No border control or questioning at all!
Ready to celebrate and relax after a tiring journey, we took an Uber to our Lisbon Airbnb. Little did we know, we weren't in for rest yet. After we climbed the five flights of stairs (like in most of our stays) to our Airbnb, we didn't find a sterilized sanctuary, but rather a smelly place that hadn't been cleaned from its prior guests. The bed linens were all crumpled from other humans, the kitchen sink and counters were full of crusty dishes and bags of garbage on the floor. Our host was very apologetic and said the housekeeper could be there in a few hours or we could go to one of his other properties for the night. We chose the latter so we could go to bed earlier and actually liked the new Airbnb waaayyy more. Unfortunately, we couldn't unsee what we saw at the original place and didn't want to return the next day if we had a better option. The host said we couldn't switch our stay for the remainder of our 4-night reservation to the new place because of accounting reasons. Long story short, we spent a lot of time dealing with the cancellation, refunding and rebooking. In the end, we reserved a new place that we are moving to in an hour. After traveling for two months, having one lodging glitch isn't bad!!
But forget travel and accommodation hiccups! How's Portugal, you ask?!?!? Well, we haven't had much of a chance to absorb it, but from our short glimpse while eating dinner, it looks great! The architecture is one-of-a-kind and they are putting gorgeous Christmas decorations up all over the city. Stay tuned...
