Getting to southern Portugal after landing in Lisbon was a long travel day but we’ve arrived!
With our papers in hand (and digital copies on our phones) we were told we were the first to have everything we needed by the American Airlines agent at the counter. She said she hadn't had anybody show up, that day, with all of the required things (as was being demonstrated by the woman next to us who was arguing that she had never needed a passport to fly before). On the US embassy/official travel site it showed we needed a negative Covid Test (rapid antigen within 24 hours of our first departing flight or a PCR within 72 hours) so we took one as we didn't want to end up being surprised and have that be an issue. We didn't get asked to show it at anytime! On Portugal's site it seems to indicate that may have changed sometime in February, but that hasn't made it onto the US official sites which sure made it quite challenging to figure out current Covid requirements. We also had to have (in addition to a passport to fly internationally) a Passenger Locator Form which you complete online within 4 days of departure. It was a long travel day as we left Phoenix midday at 12;30, had a short layover in Philadelphia, and landed in Lisbon the next morning at 9:00 am local time. Going through customs was a breeze and went very quickly as they seemed to rely mostly on having been validated by the airline and only required us to show our passport. We grabbed our first delicious Kaffe meia de leite in the airport, picked up our reserved rental car, and made the almost three hour drive to Lagos. We crossed a very cool long bridge and began driving through lots of rolling green hills, farms, sheep, vineyards, blooming wildflowers and very interesting trees. Here's a few pictures I took along the way, but I was mostly just enjoying the pretty drive and trying to stay awake!
The views from our airbnb, close to the Old Town, are just stunning as it has three small balconies from different rooms in the apartment. Each one is fabulous! Our host spoke wonderful English (she's originally from Canada) so that made things very simple for us. We forced ourselves to stay awake by taking a long walk wandering around some of the beautiful cobblestone streets and sitting outside to enjoy a yummy meal of various seafood dishes (including our first grilled sardines which were delicious). We found the combination of white buildings with red tile roofs, the old city wall, colors, periodic modern graffiti, cobblestones, tile work and blue water to be amazing.
Feeling pretty damn fortunate to be here in this incredible place for a month to have time to explore, wander and experience it all.
Hi I wonder if you could recommend best car rental company to use
Feeling extremely fortunate.