All good things must come to an end

Well, this brings me to our final day of the trip.  We had an early flight out of Lisbon, and since the flight was to a Portuguese island, it was a domestic flight, not international, so we didn’t have to be there so many hours in advance.

 

One thing I noticed about European airports was that they seem more organized for some things, but less organized for others, when compared to US airports.  They use a different system for check in, so when you arrive at the airport, you find your flight on a board and this will tell you which counter number to go to to check in.  This means the people on your flight and maybe 1-2 others that leave at the same time are checking in with you, not every single person on that airline for the next few hours.  There were usually 2-3 windows for the flight, and I liked that there as never a line of over 100 people waiting to check in, like I have seen in the US. 

Then when we would head to the gate, the gates were sometimes set up differently and closer together.  I think they could be closer together because often when we went to board, we were placed on a bus, driven to the plan and then climbed up stairs onto the plane.  Rarely do I see that in the US other than for small planes.  On this flight back to the island, it was a huge plane, with 2 seats on both ends, and then a row with 4 in the middle, so it was big, and we climbed up stairs into that size plane.  It was quite a hike up! 

Here you can see the inside of the plane, and surprisingly, it was pretty empty.  We flew on TAP again.  This was flight nice because we each had our own TV screen.  The flight was just under 2 hours, so it was not long at all.

 

I was sure they would serve pork (which they did) so I bought a drinkable yogurt at the airport.  It was really good, so I may buy these in the store now.

 

Then we were served our meal.  I gave them back the sandwich, but I kept a yogurt, and had some juice and coffee. 

 

While I was at the airport, I also bought these Portuguese cookies.  They turned out to be really good.  Ryan and I finished them off when I got home.

 

I love the maps on the planes.  Here you can see we left Lisbon and are heading to the Azores.

 

At this time we had just left.

 

Now, here are some pictures of the island from the air.  I love to look at the rocky coastline from the sky.  This island is so beautiful.

 

 

 

After we landed and got settled, mom and Joe repacked, we headed out for our last few hours.  We went down to the beach area and had lunch at Make Me Nuts. 

My mom had a Caesar salad.

 

Joe had a veggie salad.  Yes, corn is common on the salads.

 

I had an egg and cheese sandwich with fries.

 

After sitting by the beach and enjoying one final coffee drink, I took them back to the airport for their return to the states.

 

Thanks everyone for reading about our travels.  Let me know if you have any questions.  I know there was a lot to read, so if you missed anything, you can go back and read the previous posts.  I will be taking a day or so break from posting, but I will get up links to all of my posts from the vacation just in case you have an interesting in something you may have missed reading about. 

QUESTION:  Which airport is your favorite airport?  How early do you usually arrive to the airport to get a flight?