Santiago de Compostela to Lisboa

This was one of those necessary but not very enjoyable days. A transfer day

Our hotel Alameda Rooms in Santiago is one of a group of eight hotels. Breakfast is not in our hotel but about 250 metres away in a sister hotel. It was steady rain on our way down to breakfast but had paused on our way back. We had about a twenty minute walk to the intercity bus station and made it before the rain began to fall again.

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 9.30 but we didn’t get away until 9.55. It was large and comfortable, sixty seats, very quiet and smooth, On board wifi and a small entertainment screen on the back of the seat in front. Movies etc and you could track the progress of the bus. There was an onboard toilet but a €1 charge to use it. Only one person on the whole journey made use of it. The buses yesterday and today had seat belts and it is compulsary in Spain and Portugal to use them. We saw very few people using them. The bus was almost full. We met a lady from New Plymouth on our bus. She had just finished walking part of the Camino Frances and was going to Lisbon for a week and it nice talking to a fellow Kiwi for a change.

Ours was an express bus so only stops at Vigo, Braga and Porto Airport before arriving in Porto City for a lunch break of 45 minutes. Porto is roughly halfway to Lisbon and it had rained all the way. When we crossed the border at the Minho river we had to put our watches back an hour. After the stop in Porto the bus was practically empty, only about 10 passengers. The only stop between Porto and Lisbon was at Fatima.

We got into Lisbon at 5.05pm so a time of 8 hours plus, allowing for the one hour time difference between Spain and Portugal. In the 8 hours it took to bus to 608km to Lisbon we could have walked 30 kilometres on the Camino, or flown from Lisbon to Dubai. Our preference by far would be to do the walking.

At Lisbon bus station, Sende Rios, we bought a 24 hour Metro/bus/ferry pass. You can’t buy these using a money card at a machine so we joined a long line of people at a ticket office. This was painfully slow and took nearly an hour as most of those in the line were students wanting a student metro pass which involved pages of documentation and providing a photograph to be adhered to their card. When we finally got to the front of this queue we were directed to another desk and had our cards in a few minutes. Fortunately we know the metro well and it was a breeze to get to the hotel. We are back at the Ramada for one night.

We also had a comedy of errors at check-in at the hotel. We were given a room on the fourth floor and told it was also an accessible room, which was okay by us, even though it was out the back looking into a light well. When we got to the room it hadn’t been serviced (now after 7pm) and the room, bed and bathroom were an absolute mess. Back at reception they gave us another room on the sixteenth floor, looking out to the river. When we went into this room it already had another guest’s bag and shoes in it. Back to reception and another room, now on the sixth floor. Third time lucky and this one also has a nice outlook toward the river. We felt a bit sorry for the very nice young man on reception. He spoke beautiful English and was very friendly and helpful.

We are now feeling quite worn out, even though we have basically just sat on our butts all day. Tomorrow we will just be filling in time before our shuttle takes us to the airport at 6.15pm.