Drive Back To Porto

June 13, 2024

Since we went to bed so early last night we both were awake super early as well. That’s ok though because there was lots we wanted to do this morning before we drove back to Porto. After getting the blog updated and getting packed up we headed down to the beach to re-take our traditional beach vacation photo. I’m sure if anyone was watching us they thought we were nuts as we moved and re-wrote in the sand a few times to get it just right.

Next we headed to a parking lot close to the geocache I couldn’t find yesterday. We walked about 500 feet to the cache. This time I found it within a few minutes. It was a great hide and the most creative hide I found in Portugal.

With our two tasks complete we headed into the city center for breakfast which happened to be the restaurant next door to the pizza place we ate at yesterday. We weren’t planning on stopping anywhere on the drive back so we both ordered our own meals and shared a fruit and Nutella crepe for dessert. The food was really good and satisfying.

The drive back was easy peasy and took just under 5 hours. We took the freeway the entire way and it was a smooth, scenic, and enjoyable ride with not a lot of traffic. I was happy to get the car returned to the rental car agency and gave a sigh of relief that we had made it without any accidents since we didn’t have the insurance. However the Budget employees did the most thorough inspection of the car that I have ever been through when returning a rental car, and unfortunately they discovered some minor scrapes on the rim of the passenger front tire from when I had gotten a little too close to the curb when parking. These little scrapes cost me a little over 200 Euro!!! It was completely irritating, however still cheaper than any of the insurance they had offered up-front. I’m more irritated with myself that I caused the damage. That’s why sometimes I don’t mind getting a rental car that’s been around awhile so the minor stuff is not as noticeable.

We took a Bolt to our hotel that is located across the street from the airport. Our flight is at 5:00 tomorrow morning and we’ll be actually able to walk to the airport. We dumped our stuff and walked to find a restaurant for dinner. We walked by a place that looked ok, but walked a little further to see if anything else would peak our interest. Nothing did so we just went back to the first place. Our waiter did not speak a lot of English but we made it through. We were hoping to find a great little local hole in the wall place, but it just ended up being ok.

Since we spent most of the day in the car, I suggested we walk our route to the airport so we knew exactly where we’re going at 2:00 in the morning. It will be an easy walk.