Our sole goal for the morning was getting our bags and the apartment ready to check out by the 11:00 a.m. deadline. We made it with a few minutes to spare, at which point Elsa and her husband Jeff arrived. While Elsa’s plan was to call a taxi, she was having trouble securing one with enough seats for our party. As long as Amanda was comfortable with Eilidh on her lap (she was), Jeff was willing to drive us to the airport.
Noah and Emmie went to our apartment’s balcony for a final photo.
The ride to the airport with Jeff was considerably less frightening than the incoming taxi ride after our Lisbon arrival. We made it to the airport, dropped our checked bags, before finding the priority security lane designed for families with small children.
Portuguese airport security was by far the most thorough we’ve encountered, requiring every single bag of Eilidh’s liquid Nourish food to be placed three-to-a-bin and sent through the scanners. Given we had packed food for the rest of the trip plus no fewer than a half-dozen bottles of medicine, our trip through security was quite lengthy – so much so the family behind us was arguing for another lane to be opened.
While the food went through the scanners without any problems, my bag was flagged. The three sardine cans I’d purchased for each child’s birth year were over 100 mL, meaning they could not be included in the carry-on luggage. The security guard was friendly and pointed me to a postal machine which would allow me to purchase a padded envelope and ship the cans back to the states.
The cost to ship the sardine cans was €11.50, effectively half the price I paid for the cans themselves! While the process seemed straightforward when explained by the guard, I had to make two trips into the airport terminal to get change, as the machine was only accepting coins. I eventually purchased the pre-paid envelope, packed the sardine cans, wrote my address, dropped it in the mailbox, and now am hoping they make the trip to the states.
The early checkout time combined with the direct trip to the airport meant we had roughly four hours until our departure to Porto Santo. The food court was pretty busy and high chairs weren’t anywhere in sight, so we ate in shifts. I walked with Eilidh and Emmie while Amanda, Cassy, and Noah ate their lunch from KFC and Pizza Hut. Emmie liked the look of Noah’s chicken strips, so we ordered our later meal from the same spots.
Eilidh rode with me on the flight to Porto Santo, six rows ahead of the rest of our group. She slept most of the way, and when she was awake, we were fortunate to be sitting by a girl with an iPad within viewing distance for Eilidh. Once again, the TAP Portugal flight included a free cold meal; I liked my chicken-salad-like sandwich more than the last flight but apparently was served different cuisine than Amanda, who liked her sandwich less.
Boarding and deplaning via stairs seems to be commonplace at European airports.
We were the only incoming flight at the small Porto Santo Airport, enabling us to quickly claim our bags from the carousel and walk to the taxi queue. We were paired with a friendly taxi driver who recognized our rental home based on the Google Maps marker I’d saved and had actually taken the past guest from the house to the airport earlier today.
Our first views from the airplane of Porto Santo island.
At the house was Claudia, the local Porto Santo resident in charge of cleaning, gardening, and assisting incoming and outgoing guests. She provided a friendly overview of the roomy house, which was prepared perfectly for our arrival. One bedroom featured a crib for Eilidh; a fruit basket, loaf of bread, and strawberry preserves were on the dining room table; and she had baked a homemade chocolate cake as a welcoming dessert.
Retiro Praia, where we’ll be spending the next 7 days.
Emmie stands in the backyard, which includes a picnic table and a half-dozen padded chairs.
Porto Santo is a small island, so a full-fledged rental car seemed unnecessary. However, when we reserved our rental property, photos of the house car were shared, and it was available for us to use at a very reasonable daily price. While it wasn’t large enough to take everyone, we thought it would be useful for small group exploration of the island – and errands, as the city center is roughly a mile away from the house.
It turns out this great plan had a flaw: the car was manual. I’ve driven a manual car only once, and it was over 10 years ago when I was in college. Amanda’s gap since driving a manual car, likely more proficiently than me, was just as long if not longer. I really liked the idea of having a vehicle but didn’t feel comfortable rolling the dice on learning how to drive a manual car on an unfamiliar island.
Noah and Emmie (and the adults) really wanted to see water, so despite an evening arrival to the island, we decided to at least walk to the beach, take in the views, and grab a quick dinner. The rental house is part of a gated residential area which includes a private walkway to the beach.
Emmie leads the way in the 100-meter walk to the beach down the sandy tree-lined path.
We walked along the sand and snapped some quick photos before settling on dinner at Mar E Sol, the first restaurant we found along the beachfront. Service was painfully slow but Noah and Emmie were happy to spend a little extra time in the sand as we waited for food. I tried the fish of the day, a locally-caught parrotfish. Amanda and Cassy had burgers; the kids split a ham and cheese omelet. Everything tasted fine but the long wait means the restaurant won’t be on our list of places to eat at again while we’re on the island.
Emmie was proud after using a stick to draw her name in the sand!
We returned to our house and dug into the homemade chocolate cake for dessert!