The plane left on time at 6.15am, destination Lisbon. I was up early and my wife drove me to the nearest metro station to enable me to get to the airport by 5.15 am. Safely buckled up on the plane, that is when my traumatic relationship to my ear buds started. I dropped one of them. It hit my knee and rolled across the aisle and ended up somewhere amongst the passengers sitting across from me. They initiated a search and the bud was found under the seat of a passenger a row in front of them. Halfway through the flight, the left earbud, not the one I had dropped, no longer worked, for which I found a solution for on reddit once I had landed. To top all that, later in the trip I lost the charging box, so I could no longer charge and use them.
The flight was delayed due to de-icing in Copenhagen and fog in Lisbon, so we landed about 1 hour delayed. I had a 13.30 bus from Lisbon Sete Rios bus station, so I had plenty of time. It was fine weather, the sun was shinning, and I decided to walk the 6 or so kilometers to the bus station, stopping for a coffee on the way (and fixing the malfunctioning ear bud).
There were a couple of German walkers on the bus, they would be start walking the Fisherman Trail the next day, and I shared some of my experiences from the trail. The long distance bus network in Portugal (and Spain) is fantastic, and runs on time. I arrived in Porto Covo and found my hotel on the outskirts of town without any problems. I wanted to charge my camera, but couldn’t fine the usb cable – already lost, and I hadn’t even started walking. I went out to take a look around town and see if I could find a cable. I went in a small store and the guy told me that there was a Chinese shop in town, and sure enough I found a cable there. Porto Covo hadn’t changed from my last trip – it was only 2 years ago and I strolled along the main street down to the coast and sat and watched the sun go down. I didn’t get to see the sun go down directly into the ocean, as clouds appeared blocking sight of the sun. All the days I have spent walking the coast, and I still haven’t seen the perfect sunset, and I wouldn’t on this trip either.
Given the one hour time difference between Portugal and Denmark, I was hungry at 6pm and didn’t want to wait until 7.30pm for the restaurants to open. Luckily an Italian restaurant, catering for tourists, was open, and I enjoyed a Quatro Fromage pizza, before returning back to the hotel and crashing out – I’d been up since 4am!