Kiwi Roaming

Our last day at the villa was a consolidation one, Steve and I needed to repack to give Paul and Karen our large bag with winter clothing / things we have purchased etc, to take back to the UK with them (ngā mihi nui). Everyone else needed to prep for our early departure as well. Our final day involved a wander into the village for lunch followed by a small grocery shop at the U Drive, pool time and an evening finishing up a puzzle, playing games and discussing the 60th week so far. We had pizza for dinner with fab rolled out sheets of pizza dough and everything in the fridge as toppings – then the left overs for breakfast.

Next morning we got up early and said goodbye to the Villa, played car packing tetris again and started our goodbyes. There is a series of TVG stations outside the main centres, they are all long hanger like buildings with two platforms (north and south basically) and a small number of shops. Rachel, Gordon, Steve and I took the TGV one stop (30 mins) south to the Aix-en-provence TGV station and then got an Uber Comfort to the Marsailles Airport. Paul and Karen went the other way by TGV to Lyon where they were staying the night before flying home. Our train was delayed 25 mins so we all stood in the sunshine and nattered.

Ryan Air – the thing about Ryan Air is it’s as basic as you expect. The terminal is basic with one duty free store and a couple of food places, no water tap but clean enough toilets. We had a couple of hours to kill there so charged our phones and sweltered in the heat. They didn’t measure our carry-on luggage and there was plenty of space in the overhead compartments for our backpacks. There are no screens onboard and the seat in front has no pocket or place to store your bits and bobs but meant the legroom was ok.

The other thing we were worried about was the airport ground staff promising rolling strikes in September in Portugal and Spain, which created a worry that we may have issues at the other end in Porto – but didn’t, and nor did Imogen arriving the following day, phew.

Porto – new country, new language and more to see and experience. Our apartment is a narrow three storied place with 3 good bedrooms a tiny kitchen and a lovely courtyard down about 20 steps out the back. Alexandra the manager greeted us, took us on a tour of the place explaining things before writing 50 things on a map, places to see, do, eat and experience. It was a tiny bit overwhelming but wonderful all the same. She then followed up with 42! WhatsApp messages to Steve with more info. Great service.

It was late in the day now so we unpacked and headed to the mall about 200m away for a nosy, a mall with a Decathlon in it (my new favourite shop), then onto the Mercado Bom Successo a fantastic up market food court right near by our apartment. It took us about 5 mins to find a table then 30 mins of people watching before even going on a reconnoiter – where our first two purchases were beers (at the massive beer bar) and wines from a wee wine bar, and our first round of pasteis de nata. Steve has limited me to 1 x pasteis de nata a day btw, they are just so yummy and not sweet at all with crisp pastry. We eventually made food decisions and all got something different, mine were empanadas filled with yummy things like goats cheese and nuts.