Saturday, 21 March -Lisbon, Portugal

We hit a few areas of turbulence over night, and none of us slept a great deal, but we arrived safely at Lisbon airport around 9 am local time. It didn’t start well – we had to leave the plane on the tarmac and stand through a rather long, rough ride to the terminal, where the lines for Immigration were unbelievably long. Larry and I missed the one for handicapped people and the other for holders of e-passports and stood awhile in the general line. An attendant moved us to the handicapped line, or I think we’d still be waiting. Meanwhile, Joan & Bob had quickly moved through the e-passport line and were having a coffee and Portuguese tart when we caught up. It was an extremely long, and poorly-marked walk to Baggage claim, and then back to the taxi area. We quickly found a cab and soon were at the Hotel Acta Moa. Our rooms were not ready, but we left our bags and went to the nearby Restaurant Dona Maria for a delicious and reasonably priced meal. The hotel is pleasant, but modest. Apparently it was created from an older building that originally served another purpose. It’s in a non-touristy part of the city, but near a convenient train station. We decided to nap for awhile before heading out again. We had a little trouble with conflicting directions to the subway, but eventually found ourselves at the waterfront, where there was music and crowds and high spirits. We hoped to take a tram along the waterfront to some familiar landmarks, but didn’t find one.  Back at the hotel we enjoyed a nice dinner.