January 20, 2026 to January 21, 2026
Leaving & Arriving
A Few Bumps in the Road
You would think us sea-tested, battle-scarred BC Ferries veterans would have it all locked up but no! The morning of our departure for Vancouver to stay with friends for a night, I commented to Jim that we had not received a reminder email of our ferry reservation, recommended even for foot passengers like us, between Galiano & Tsawwassen.
There is no charge and with only a morning and evening ferry in the off-season, we always reserve. We also always go over the day before a flight in case of ferry cancellations, an all too frequent occurrence for a myriad of reasons. But when I checked, no reservation. Then when I tried to make one online, it said none were available. Yikes!
So I made a reservation just in case for the evening sailing but asked Marianne to take us to the terminal earlier than usual for the morning sailing as I know they hold back some spaces. Not a soul at the terminal when we arrived shortly after 7am and the ticket agent looked surprised when I anxiously asked if there was space for two foot passengers. No problemo!
Hurray - it would otherwise have been an inauspicious start to the long journey ahead! Details, details…
The fog was heavy and the water taxi coming in for the Galiano kids who go to high school on Salt Spring Island looked ghostly. Everything looked ghostly.
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On the ferry we had an unexpected breakfast visit with a neighbour/friend who kindly offered to take us to the airport Skytrain station where she was picking up family. The west coast has really been socked in with heavy fog for days during our so far unseasonably warm winter, so it was a bit of a hair-raising drive with very limited visibility. But we made it, hopped the train, then a bus followed by a nice walk to our Vancouver friends’ house in Kerrisdale where we overnighted. Our bikes & packed panniers had been sent ahead to their place several weeks ago.
Suffice to say, we had a lovely visit & launch for our trip, enjoying Donna’s excellent cooking, Werner’s Portuguese wine choice and a good walk. We introduced them to our favourite word game, Quiddler which we are taking with us for entertainment so had lots of laughs.
A good sleep in a familiar bed, excellent coffee and breakfast & off to the airport with our efficient chauffeur at a decent hour for our 1:30 pm flight.
Checked in our 4 allowed bags. We each have a heavy duty plastic zippered storage bag from IKEA, a switch from our heavier duffle bags. They were recommended by a folding bike site to pack the bikes in & would likely be fine for smaller bikes with 16” wheels but did not work for ours. So we are using them for our 3 panniers each plus helmet with the fourth pannier as carryon. We weighed everything and will be carrying about 40 lbs. We were very happy that our folding bikes, each in a bike bag, waived the oversize baggage fees we have always paid for our regular bikes. That was one of the reasons we decided to switch to folding bikes. We’ll see how the other aspects work out.
Mercifully uncrowded in the international terminal; one of the joys of off-season travel. Fog lifted and our Air France flight left roughly on time. The flight actually had some empty seats. After we arranged all our books, devices, water, pillows & blankets, I happily swilled the complimentary glass of bubbly handed to me by the flight attendant, grateful we made the decision to again fly Premium Economy on this long leg to Paris. Wouldn’t Business Class be nice we muttered to ourselves as we made the walk through pod-ville to our lesser seats but definitely not in our budget.
But I do think Premium Economy is worth every bit of extra money to feel you are going to be fairly comfortable. Just being able to elevate my feet on a footrest makes a difference. No doubt we all saw the horrors of diminished legroom inflicted on passengers recently by WestJet. As someone wrote, they’ll be charging us extra for legs soon.
Rising up into the sky, it’s always amazing to me that this loaded metal tube can extricate itself from the earth. We had clear view of the UBC endowment lands, a green but shrinking oasis in the gray concrete landscape of Vancouver, framed by water, and then the wall of the Coast Mountains rising steeply up from the shoreline. It’s a mountainous province we live in for sure. Worryingly, not much white on them though which, if this warm weather continues, does not bode well for fish and humans who rely on that snowpack.
I love the very clever Air France instructions that appear on our screens for all the flight do’s and don’t - flight attendants in classic French settings - very creative.
I don’t fly very often, once a year generally, so I am always entranced anew by the details. And new to me were camera views from the front of the plane and the back, especially interesting as we were landing as it was a view of the front somewhat fragile-looking landing wheels getting closer & closer to the tarmac.
Anyway, we had a very comfortable 9 hr flight with not even a frisson of turbulence. We landed at Charles de Gaull in Paris just as the rising sun lit up the sky. We then had to make our connection to Lisbon with only an hour to get from Terminal 2E to 2F.
Sounds like it should be just a short stroll away but we know from our experience last year, it isn’t so. We missed our connection to Malaga then due to a delayed departure from Vancouver and endured a 12 hour wait for the next flight.. And that was after literally running through the airport.
You walk a long way to a train, then walk more, and go through security again & immigration. A connection time of 90 minutes should be sufficient but we had already lost a bit of time with our flight again being a little delayed.
There wasn’t much congestion though in the airport and we did well til we got to security and my carryon pannier was diverted for a manual inspection, all because as it turns out, I had a partly filled water bottle in it. There was one person doing these inspections but lots of other security personnel milling around not doing much of anything. Grrrr….
My pannier was at the end of a long row of other bags to be hand inspected and we watched with mounting frustration as the security agent methodically unpacked everything in one guy’s carryon, poked her wand into every nook and cranny and then methodically packed it all back in. I was literally gritting my teeth as the time ticked away.
Finally my offending water bottle was revealed and then I was also really annoyed with myself! Released at last, we did the new passport scan in immigration with no problem, and after another long walk/run, arriving sweaty and cranky to the gates where we spent a most exhausting day last year. We made it with about 20 minutes to spare. I do understand why some people stop travelling.
But after a short 2 hour flight - hello Portugal! Exciting to be in a new country. Ha! The gods had more tricks in store however. While waiting at the baggage carousel, I checked my phone and saw there was an Air France email saying our baggage had been located and would be flown to Lisbon within 24 hrs! . So while we were flying from Paris, the rest of our stuff had been languishing there, likely due to the short connection time. Our bikes however made it to the oversized luggage carousel - yay! - but nothing else.
Our hotel, York Hotel Lisboa seems perfect. For those of you who know Lisbon, it’s in the Estrela district. It’s in an older building with traditional architecture - arches and pillers with a long flight of stone steps up from the street and a cobbled courtyard where it would be nice to sit on a sunny day. It also has a very nice sitting and breakfast room and seems very quiet. Our room is quite big.
We got settled as much as one does with no luggage. I would go and buy some things and claim them but 1) I would have to spend time doing a claim and 2) I would have to carry more stuff. So we will make do and hope it all arrives tomorrow.
We headed out to get phone SiMs and again are so impressed by the mobility options in Europe for visitors. For E10 we get 60 GB of data and 1000 minutes of talk and text. Even though we end up with Portuguese phone numbers temporarily, we like this rather than the E-SIMs that are data only. Before putting the new SIM in the phone, we will use one day of free roaming I redeemed through Telus Rewards, to call our bank/credit card with our new phone #s so we can receive the 2nd stage verification texts if needed. And we can use What’s App.
Lisbon is indeed hilly so we got a good workout looking for phone stores after so much sitting. A few random shots. Looking forward to seeing more tomorrow. We like our location.
The dinner options were vast - so many great looking restaurants and cafes but we didn’t want anything formal or lengthy so we opted for a cool-looking place with lots of young people called Honest Greens with just counter service. I had a Spicy Feta Bowl with all kinds of veg and Jim had Tuna Tataki with slightly seared tuna slices and a big salad - both huge, delicious and less than anything on BC Ferries! Think we have found food heaven in Lisbon!!
It has been raining here though warm - 14 degrees. The final bump in the road is that a severe weather warning had been issued for tomorrow and some days on for much of the west coast of Portugal. Storm Ingrid is due to arrive with low temperatures, rain, strong winds, and rough seas. So we may stay in Lisbon through the weekend. Not a hardship, just a change on the always shifting landscape of travelling by bike!
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