Usually we spend Easter holidays shivering but generally having a good time at one of the Butlins' with one of our family friends. It has been an Easter tradition for the past 3 years. But this year, given that we had exhausted all the Butlins options, we thought we would go in search of the sun to Lisbon.
We were going with another good family who have been really helpful especially in the month of Jan/Feb 2018 when I was suffering from chest infection. The lady D, despite herself being in the family way, drove R to her classes and when one night I could not breathe and had to rush to the
A & E, R stayed overnight at their place.
D is now 6 months into her pregnancy but was still game to travel. The fact that her elder daughter A was just 11 months older to our R made it an ideal match. K and P were recent ex-colleagues and got along famously already.
The plan was to travel to Luton on Friday morning and take the afternoon flight to Lisbon. With fond hopes of the bright sun, we packed light clothes and braved the bitter cold wind of the Luton car park to board our flights to Lisbon. The kids went in one car and as usual had a whale of a time to the detriment of the hearing of P and D!
All through the flight the kids sat next to each other and made grand plans for the rest of the holiday , most of which involved staying the hotel room all day playing games, going swimming in the pool and watching lots of tele in the evenings!
As soon as we landed, D and I were sorely disappointed at the slightly chilly and windy weather in Lisbon with a slight drizzle of rain. Though in a scale of 1 to 10 this Lisbon weather would score 5 to UK's 9 in the bitterness of the cold scale, we were still disappointed..
We checked into the Jupiter Lisboa Hotel, where the staff were friendly, the rooms were huge (especially by European standards) and neat and lovely and the roof top pool was awesome.
We then stepped out to go to the skyride Gondola by the Tagus river. The uber drivers were quite helpful though only rarely did they speak English. However P had a love for languages and would always try to converse in Portuguese and that helped us a lot. He taught the kids to say 'Obrigado' which meant thank you and the kids would generally say it everywhere and all those faces at the receiving end would melt into huge smiles and usually some candy for the kids! :)
We passed by the famous oceanarium to get to the skyride. Though the oceanarium was one of the best in the world, given that both kids had been to the acquariums in Atlanta, Barcelona, Dubai and London.. we thought they would not miss much if we skipped this one!
The sky was still drizzling but we made the best of it and enjoyed our ride across the beautiful Tagus and the view of the Vasco da Gama bridge, Christo Rei ( Christ the king) on one side and the city of Lisbon on the other.
Our thoughtfully packed, extremely light, summer clothes were totally unsuitable to we walked to the Vasco Da Gama mall and spent several hours looking through the shops to buy a suitable coat. We di not want to buy anything expensive as it was not that cold and we had good quality coats back home for that purpose. D and I spent almost 1.5 hours looking through the various shops and finally selected something from Zara!
We were very chuffed over the time spent in arriving at this saratorial choice since over the next 4 days, we saw different colours of our coat on more than 20 ladies in the various tourist destinations.
Obviously most others hoped to catch some sun but caught the last vestiges of winter instead in Lisbon :)
We had chinese dinner at the food court, some ice cream and left happy tired to the hotel. Our rooms were next to each other so on alternate days the kids stayed in each other's rooms and had a great time playing Kludo, having midnight parties and generally being up to no good.
..to be continued.
We were going with another good family who have been really helpful especially in the month of Jan/Feb 2018 when I was suffering from chest infection. The lady D, despite herself being in the family way, drove R to her classes and when one night I could not breathe and had to rush to the
A & E, R stayed overnight at their place.
D is now 6 months into her pregnancy but was still game to travel. The fact that her elder daughter A was just 11 months older to our R made it an ideal match. K and P were recent ex-colleagues and got along famously already.
The plan was to travel to Luton on Friday morning and take the afternoon flight to Lisbon. With fond hopes of the bright sun, we packed light clothes and braved the bitter cold wind of the Luton car park to board our flights to Lisbon. The kids went in one car and as usual had a whale of a time to the detriment of the hearing of P and D!
All through the flight the kids sat next to each other and made grand plans for the rest of the holiday , most of which involved staying the hotel room all day playing games, going swimming in the pool and watching lots of tele in the evenings!
As soon as we landed, D and I were sorely disappointed at the slightly chilly and windy weather in Lisbon with a slight drizzle of rain. Though in a scale of 1 to 10 this Lisbon weather would score 5 to UK's 9 in the bitterness of the cold scale, we were still disappointed..
We checked into the Jupiter Lisboa Hotel, where the staff were friendly, the rooms were huge (especially by European standards) and neat and lovely and the roof top pool was awesome.
We then stepped out to go to the skyride Gondola by the Tagus river. The uber drivers were quite helpful though only rarely did they speak English. However P had a love for languages and would always try to converse in Portuguese and that helped us a lot. He taught the kids to say 'Obrigado' which meant thank you and the kids would generally say it everywhere and all those faces at the receiving end would melt into huge smiles and usually some candy for the kids! :)
We passed by the famous oceanarium to get to the skyride. Though the oceanarium was one of the best in the world, given that both kids had been to the acquariums in Atlanta, Barcelona, Dubai and London.. we thought they would not miss much if we skipped this one!
The sky was still drizzling but we made the best of it and enjoyed our ride across the beautiful Tagus and the view of the Vasco da Gama bridge, Christo Rei ( Christ the king) on one side and the city of Lisbon on the other.
Our thoughtfully packed, extremely light, summer clothes were totally unsuitable to we walked to the Vasco Da Gama mall and spent several hours looking through the shops to buy a suitable coat. We di not want to buy anything expensive as it was not that cold and we had good quality coats back home for that purpose. D and I spent almost 1.5 hours looking through the various shops and finally selected something from Zara!
We were very chuffed over the time spent in arriving at this saratorial choice since over the next 4 days, we saw different colours of our coat on more than 20 ladies in the various tourist destinations.
Obviously most others hoped to catch some sun but caught the last vestiges of winter instead in Lisbon :)
We had chinese dinner at the food court, some ice cream and left happy tired to the hotel. Our rooms were next to each other so on alternate days the kids stayed in each other's rooms and had a great time playing Kludo, having midnight parties and generally being up to no good.
..to be continued.
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