Our two leg trip to Porto went off without a hitch for the most part. We had to transfer by car from London Heathrow to Stansted Airport. Never heard of Stansted? I'm not surprised. I won't waste precious blog space except to say that I read that 5 hours was the bare minimum you should have for a transfer between these airports and that is the BARE minimum. We were delayed due to rain so by the time we landed it was close to 9 pm local time which was 24 hours from when we left our house in L.A.
Happy Team KAAP
We deplaned and grabbed our bags and at the end of the hallway there were two smiling very familiar faces very happy to see us and we we sorta happy to see them. Paula's friend Isabel graciously offered to pick us up and drive the 1 hour north from Porto to Ponte de Lima.
I mentioned to Paula that I might want a snack before going to bed. She said her aunt would most definitely have something for us to eat. We arrived at the home of Tio Luis and Tia Loreta, Paula's aunt and uncle and Mauricia, Tia Loreta's sister. They greeted us warmly with a double kiss on the cheek starting with the right cheek and moving to the left. This is a typical greeting in Portugal.
We were whisked off the the kitchen where a slew of plates, cups, platters of food and various drinks were offered. You could tell this very thing had been done many many times around this table. We had bread, cookies, a cheesecake like dessert, cheese, espresso, juice. My favorite was this pinwheel like savory dish with a thin slices of meat wrapped in homemade bread called Bola de carne.
My tummy was happy but by now I had been up 33 hours. So you know what comes next, head hit the pillow.