Back in October, 2021 we started thinking about traveling again. Surely by spring of 2022, Covid will have simmered down? Little did we know…
But back then, we decided on Portugal for our first swoop out of the Covid cocoon. Because we’ve never been there. The spectacular natural beauty along with the art, history, architecture and culture are fascinating. Bonus: there is a high Covid vaccination rate (something like 91% at this writing) and they are sensible about handling lockdowns and restrictions.
How long will we stay? A month we thought. We started looking for plane tickets figuring we’d start filling in the details after we found tickets. We were flexible with timing in the vicinity of March / April. We found some bargain basement fares with 12 and 15 hour layovers. Ick!
Finally we snagged some moderately priced tickets on United.
ABQ -> DEN -> EWR -> LIS. Two stops, but okay. Whew hu.
We originally booked for March but as it turns out – Omicron made a hash of things and by the end of January we thought – surely, surely April will be great. So we re-booked for April. United Airlines made it remarkably easy to change with no fee. [We get no kickbacks from United, I promise].
When March rolled around (like now), we slapped our foreheads – hey, this trip really is going to happen. We land in Lisbon and then what? Time to rough out a plan.