Ola Portugal!

It was mostly a travel day today and fortunately all went well. The transfer from Bratislava to Vienna airport took around 45 minutes where we farewelled Wayne and Luan. Austrian Air had self service luggage tag print stations as well as bag drop off counters. The whole process was quite smooth and efficient. They included the other Star Alliance partners which encompassed TAP, the airline that we were flying. It seemed reviews of TAP online were variable but we thought they were fine. Our 3 hour economy flight was unremarkable. There was enough legroom, the plane was clean, the staff were friendly and we were given a snack. The highlight of the plane trip was the Lara-induced, plane-wide, super-enthusiastic post-landing applause ...the joy of embarassing your big brother! I hope the crew didn't take this as a lack of respect for the pilot.

TAP. So far so good. Nothing to rave about. Nothing to complain about. Did what we needed it to do at the right price point.

Children were happy to be on a plane again after traveling over land for weeks

Didn't make it out of the airport before we got portuguese tarts. Sheesh!

We had booked our transfers from the airport to our apartments via Rideways which then in turn directed us to Mozio. It was good value as the price included tip and a meet & greet service. What we expected was a van that would take all 9 of us. What we got was 2 vehicles. It was somewhat irritating but I suppose they did wait for each other and we got there in the end. Our home for the next 4 nights will be at Lisbon Serviced Apartments at Baixa Chiado. Apartment rentals come with inherent risks and it is always a relief when they are actually available, they are clean and they look as advertised. One of the three apartments has a broken washing machine (ours!!), but apart from that they are quite nice and seem to be in a good location.

Two things hit us immediately upon arrival at Lisbon. The first was that 12 degrees celsius felt positively glorious, even bordering on boiling, after temperatureshoverering at or below 0. The second was that we we felt we had finally reached civilisation...foodie civilisation. No offence to Eastern Europe...As we wandered through the Chiado area towards Time Out Markets, enjoying the last day of the Christmas lights, there was a palpable sense of happiness. It turned out to be our stomaches rejoicing! Time Our Markets is pretty much a big funky food court, and our senses were initally overwhelmed by choices. It didn't take us long to get our mojo back and the children were delighted to go and buy their dinner themselves.

As we walked back towards our apartments, we did miss our guides. There was no no one to tell us about the church that we walked past or relay an interesting story about the inhabitant or educate us on relevant history. The rest of the evening was the necessary evil of laundry and groceries so I'll sign out here.

Gorgeous Lisbon!

Clean and looked as advertised

Our view

No one to tell us about this building :(

Time Out Market - upmarket food court

Octopus hotdog

Can't even remember what this is. Purchased by Opa

Children loved their dinner

Last of the christmas celebrationgs

Theatre. But no personal guide to tell us all about it :(

So many things to tempt us...

The gelato store that was highly recommended. Conveniently a block away from our apartments

Can't get fresher than this. Orange juicing machine at the local supermarket

Back to Reality

We are home safe and sound! It didn't take us very long at all to crash back into reality...I am ready for my next holiday!

Our last day in Hong Kong was one of last minute shopping. We had plans to visit the Pixar exhibition but we had to change MTRs too many times for our liking and couldn't figure out which bus to take. My parents, AKA our trusty guides, had already left for Singapore early in the morning.

So we decided to be brave and return to Sogo! It was slightly better than the previous day as most Hong Kong locals don't start their day until later. I can't even remember anymore what we bought! All I knew was that we spent 2 hours back at the hotel trying to rearrange everything in our suitcases. The rest of the afternoon flew by and we left for Hong Kong airport in the same weather condition as when we arrived...grey and rainy. We were grateful to be able to fit into the one taxi and the ride didn't take long at all.

The Qantas check in counters at Hong Kong International was better organised and more efficient than the one in Sydney. Despite the long line, it moved quickly and the staff were friendly and helpful. Immigration and security were likewise efficient and quick.

We made our way to the wonderfully LARGE food court that they had. We had to spend the last of our Hong Kong dollars. Our first stop was Cafe De Coral for some last minute BBQ pork, duck, rice and noodles, as well as my favourite Hong Kong milk tea. It was a lot cheaper than expected. So we moved on to what has become a bad habit at airports for us...McDonalds! We filled ourselves with taro pies, sundaes and milkshakes. Again, we still had money left over!

It appeared that I was destined to go into the Disney Store...we finally finished our last dollars.

A last minute dash later to purchase a man bag, and we were on the plane flying home. The flight home was not as smooth as the flight over but we were glad to be home nonetheless. We also welcomed Chloe into our home, who will be staying with us over the next 10 months. She had also arrived that morning from the UK.

I realised that I had forgotten to add photos to my last photos so that problem has been fixed!