Destination Portugal - Part 1

Friday 19^th-Saturday 20^th September

James and I had done an “all-nighter” for this year’s holiday travel to Gatwick Airport. This was mainly driven by cost – to get a taxi from Basingstoke to Gatwick is around £92. Ouch on the wallet! So we took connecting trains, via Clapham Junction, and arrived at Gatwick Airport around midnight.

As anyone who’s travelled to that airport at night may know, there’s nothing much open in the early hours. We were flying to Faro in Portugal from the North Terminal, and like quite a few other travellers we only found one coffee shop open at that time of night. James had a coffee and we perched in front of the counter area watching the people go by us. I did wonder why people seemed to go around on a loop. They were looking for anywhere to sit. As it transpired there were very few seats available. Once we had finished at the cafe we went for a wander. Coming up with no places to sit, we resolved to sit on the floor and wait for the security check-in to open.

On a better note the security check-in and departure gates opened around 3am, and we got ourselves and bags scanned through. It sounds strange at that early hour but we were quite hungry (travel changes your body rhythms it seems). So we went hunting for breakfast. Ignoring the usual Wetherspoons or run-of-the-mill cafe, we opted instead for The Breakfast Club – which had luckily just opened.

Sitting at a booth, we were soon served by a friendly waiter who gave us menus. We then gave our order to our assigned waitress. I went for scrambled eggs on sourdough bread, with avocado. I coupled that with a latte. James ordered scrambled eggs too, but he had bacon with that, and a cappuccino. All of this was much-needed, but I have to say it was absolutely delicious. Nice retro crockery too!

We’d had our much-needed breakfast and by that time we were able to board for our flight. We headed to gate 47 and took a seat to wait. Once we were in situ, and getting ready to take off I started to get that real buzz of excitement. There was a few bumps of turbulence on the flight, but overall it was a reasonably comfortable experience.

Our flight arrived at Faro airport just before 9am (local time which was aligned with London time). We got off the plane and headed to the pick-up point for our transfer bus. We had pre-booked this via www.lastminute.com, during the packaging up of our holiday on the site. As a side note I’d definitely recommend this well-known booking site. We found it relatively user-friendly and the ability to add options like the hotel transfer was a plus. If you are a foot passenger like us, the site can save you £s on potentially expensive taxi rides to and from the airport.

Our destination in Portugal was the coastal town of Portimao. We chose this particular place as it had self-catering with a pool and was close to the shops and the beach. What more do you need? It’s culture and history appealed to us too, as we like to explore different and interesting places.

Back to our taxi journey and once we had booked in with the Best4U transfer office, then we followed our driver. He took us to the minibus and got us all comfortably seated. We were then on our way, via the main roads – I seemed to recall the A22 which took us the most direct route. Our driver dropped us just opposite the Studio 17 Atlantichotels in Portimao. This was after around an hour’s journey which was fine as we were in no rush. We did need to rest though so when we checked in, we went to our room and got a much-needed siesta.

A couple of hours later, we went to find a cashpoint to get some euros and then onto Lidl for some groceries. We achieved both missions and got some tasty goodies to eat at our apartment. We ended the day with a lovely buffet of bread, cheeses and ham. It would be rude not to enjoy some rosé (Mateus) wine alongside this, so we did fill our glasses. We were then ready for a proper sleep so we went to bed and were thankful for the comfort of the cool sheets and pillows.

Claire on the balcony at Studio 17, Portimao

The view from Studio 17 apartment, Portimao