Getting around Portugal: Bus thrills and more

And so we continued our trek through southern Spain and the length of Portugal, as I have been recounting . But before I proceed, I need to make something crystal clear. My wife hates to ride in a bus.

This is a woman who won’t blink at traveling in a silver tube 37,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean for nearly 17 hours, from Cape Town to Atlanta. Who won’t think twice about booking seats on a train no matter how long the trip is. But, too, this is a woman who would rather walk than take a crosstown bus.

Anyway, that’s the backdrop for her attempt to make train reservations for us and our Spokane friends, Ann and Matt, to get from Lisbon to the city of Porto , some 313 kilometers (or about 195 miles) to the north.

After failing to do so online, she finally consulted with the employees at the Lisboa Carmo Hotel . They looked at each other and then back at her. “Greve,” one said in Portuguese. “Strike,” the other translated.

We’ve encountered strikes before, mostly in Italy where they schedule them on a seemingly regular basis. (The Italian word for strike is “sciopero.”) But this one was a killer, if only for Mary Pat. The rest of us were … meh. Still, we had no choice, and so she bought tickets for the reviled, though far cheaper, bus .

We left the hotel the next morning, following the advice of the hotel staff who said 20 minutes was ample time to get to the bus station. But in the midst of a conversation that the taxi driver was having, in Portuguese, with Matt, he broke in to ask us – in English – when our bus was leaving. And when we told him, he nearly choked.

“Well, I hope we make it,” he said – or words to that effect – as he stepped on the gas and began weaving in and out of traffic.

We made it, barely, with three of us lugging baggage – Ann knocking over a trash can in the process – while Mary Pat ran ahead to tell the driver that we were right behind her. Minutes later, we were on the bus as it pulled out of the station and headed north.

It would be great if that were the only dramatic moment of the trip. But both Mary Pat and her friend (and Gonzaga Law School colleague) Ann were raised Catholic. So when they discovered that we would be making a brief – “Cinco minutos,” the driver loudly announced – stop in the town of Fatima, they got excited. ( Click on this link to see why. )

Anyway, they stepped off the bus to take selfies in the Fatima station’s souvenir shop, which had any number of Our Lady of Fatima-themed curios. Matt and I stayed on the bus, but I made sure to check our wives’ progress in between looking at my phone.

And it was while I was looking down, probably doing a Duolingo Portuguese lesson, that I noticed the bus suddenly start to move.

Panic time. Neither of our wives were yet aboard, and yet the driver was heading out without giving them a second’s thought. I immediately began running down the aisle, yelling out in Spanish – despite Duolingo, I know only a few words of Portuguese – for the driver to wait, that my wife wasn’t on the bus, that he had to stop.

He wasn’t happy to hear anything about it, and especially so because I was addressing him in Spanish. He said something that I’m sure translated as “I SAID five minutes!” But to his credit he did stop, and I entreated him to wait while I went in search of the two delinquent travelers … who, after a couple of trying minutes, I managed to find.

Soon, we were all back on the bus, and the driver – who never cracked a smile, despite my repeated attempts to thank him – resumed driving us to Porto. Mary Pat was energized, while I – still breathing hard – felt as if I had just lost a full week’s worth of life.

Anyway, three or so hours after leaving Lisbon we arrived in Porto – only 9 minutes late, which didn’t improve the driver’s mood any. But we bid him goodbye and soon we were in taxis headed for our accommodations at the Moov Hotel Porto Centro – the place where confirmed moviegoer Mary Pat wanted to stay because it had been converted from what once had been a movie theater called the Cinema Águia D’ouro .

Built in 1839 and renovated with all modern touches while retaining its Art Decó facade, the place bills itself as “renewed, sophisticated and welcoming space where the spirit of cinema is still alive.”

If I hadn’t read about that spirit on the hotel’s website, the photo of Humphrey Bogart on the lobby wall leering down at me would certainly have made it clear.

As for the day’s journey up to that point, well, I was left with this: We’ll always have Fatima.

Next up : A sandwich to die for.