As far as jolly boys outings go our trip to Portugal was right up there with the best of them.
It didn't get off to the best start though, with us being behind schedule from the word go. We arrived at the check-in desk right on the bell with 45 minutes remaining before we were due to fly. The three orange-faced scouse girls manning the desk looked at us with disdain and continued talking amongst themselves. After a couple of minutes one of them turned to us and said,
"You do realise check-in closed two minutes ago."
We'd been standing there for almost five waiting for them to finish gassing about whatever orange-faced scousers gas about. Fake tan, no doubt.
"Yeah, sorry love" said Cliff, our team leader, showing uncharacteristic restraint.
"You should have left earlier" whined a different orange face, pre-empting a possible traffic defence.
"Er, yeah sorry love," repeated Clifford, "we had to go back for my mobile phone see." Clearly hoping to strike a chord with these phone-dependant oikes.
"Hmmm, you'll have to take your bags to 'Oversize Luggage' to get them on the plane but we can't be certain they'll be put on the flight. It's your own faults." said orange face number three unsympathetically.
And so we were allowed to check in, safe in the knowledge that we may be wearing the same trolleys for the next three days. Lovely.
Things continued in the same vane at security where I had my swiss card confiscated, although I was allowed to post it back to my home address.
The lads jogged ahead while I filled in the necessary paperwork. This further delay prompted the airport tannoy to request my presence at the gate immediately. I was forced to break into a run, not exactly my idea of having a good time.
We all caught the flight and so did our luggage, which was nice. We picked up the hire car with minimum fuss and hit the road.
It took a little while for the lads to relax, as I drove around the first roundabout we encountered, the wrong way. No harm done though as the roads of northern Spain carry much less traffic than the U.K.
The rest of the journey was unremarkable, the boys played golf in the back on their mobiles while the team leader got some much needed beauty sleep in the front.
We crossed the border into Portugal and the already excellent highways improved further and the already quiet roads virtually became our own. I was able to pick my 'racing line' as we roared along. Bliss.
Our first objective on our arrival in Braga was to book ourselves into some digs before we could begin our pre-match preparations in earnest. We asked a lovely policewoman for directions to the Ibis Hotel, which we had previously seen signs for. Her helpful and concise directions led us in completely the wrong direction and we ended up at the Hotel Estacao in the city's north. It was cheap at fifty euros per twin room and it was fine. Right up our street to be exact.
Upon unpacking our gear we discovered that we'd forgotten to bring any charcoal or crayons for our planned day of brass-rubbing in Braga's many cathedrals. Undeterred we hit the streets in search of an art suppliers outlet.
We thought we'd call into the nearest bar for some directions as the local police had proven to be enthusiastic but inept guides.
Unable to speak Portuguese we used the international sign for brass-rubbing and shouted "CHAR-COAL" really slowly at people in the bar. Unfortunately they could not help us in our quest for supplies but we ended up having a good old drink with them anyway.
It soon became apparent that the Portuguese are excellent and most welcoming hosts, not to mention master bakers. It also became apparent that we wouldn't be getting much brass-rubbing done today as the beer and boiled eggs began to flow.
We soon found ourselves in the town square with lots of other Spurs fans enjoying the rare opportunity to soak up a bit of March sunshine. Braga is a beautiful place, their beer is cheap and it's people are short on height but big on friendliness.
We spent the entire day in and around the square, eating, drinking and being merry.
After an hours worth of power-napping back at the hotel, we went to the game. The ground was twenty-odd minutes walk away but we caught a cab anyway.
The stadium is a very impressive place, built into a sheer-face rocky hillside, it must have been a hell of a construction job getting this bad boy built.
As for the game, I left at half-time as I was starting to feel the effects of alcohol withdrawal and was in serious danger of sobering up, so I headed for the nearest beer and boiled egg dispensary. I found one in no time and watched the second half in there along with a load of tight-fisted Braga fans.
I continued happily on my solo bar-crawl until the lads and I were reunited in the bar nearest to our hotel. They'd enjoyed a much livelier second half seeing Spurs win 3-2 after being held goalless in the first half. The only downside to their evening was being subjected, along with many other Spurs fans, to a little bit of riot police brutality at the end of the game. It was nothing too serious though and the three of them managed to evade the liberally swinging batons of the Portuguese equivalent of SA Stormtroopers, the notorious GNR.
We wiled away the rest of the evening eating boiled eggs, drinking beer and talking bollocks. Which was, pretty much, what we'd been doing all day anyway.
Day Two saw us all remarkably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the breakfast table plotting our route north. We opted for the more scenic road running parallel to the motorway , or autovia, through lots of little towns and villages. When I say we, I actually mean Cliff, our illustrious leader.
After an hour of travelling we'd covered only about twenty kms and, by now, we had all seen enough Portuguese villages for a while, so we decided to try and rejoin the autovia. With ex-RAF bumboy Cliff on navigational duties, this turned out to have near disastrous consequences.
I will summarise, for the sake of my readers, what turned out to be a five hour journey into the Portuguese wilderness. A good deal of it off-road. And, believe me, off-road in a Seat Ibiza is neither fun nor a good idea. How we made it is beyond me. We crossed a complete National Park. A mountainside National Park. In a Seat Ibiza. A Seat Ibiza that I was responsible for.
To cut a long and uneventful story short we ended up in the sleepy northern Spanish town of Villagarcia de Arousa, about 70 miles from Braga. It took us the best part of six hours to get there.
To relieve the stress of the day we decided to partake of a beverage or six and we set about the task with a zest unrivalled by anything else I have ever witnessed. In the last twenty four hours anyway.
Villagarcia is a nice place and we had a good night there. One day I would like to return and have a proper look at it.
Next day we got up late, missed breakfast and raced to the airport. We arrived at check-in right on the bell.
This time the orange faces weren't as orange and were much nicer to us, even allowing us to check-in our bags without giving us any shit for turning up late and looking like we'd spent the last three days wearing the same trolleys.
How nice, I like it here.
It didn't get off to the best start though, with us being behind schedule from the word go. We arrived at the check-in desk right on the bell with 45 minutes remaining before we were due to fly. The three orange-faced scouse girls manning the desk looked at us with disdain and continued talking amongst themselves. After a couple of minutes one of them turned to us and said,
"You do realise check-in closed two minutes ago."
We'd been standing there for almost five waiting for them to finish gassing about whatever orange-faced scousers gas about. Fake tan, no doubt.
"Yeah, sorry love" said Cliff, our team leader, showing uncharacteristic restraint.
"You should have left earlier" whined a different orange face, pre-empting a possible traffic defence.
"Er, yeah sorry love," repeated Clifford, "we had to go back for my mobile phone see." Clearly hoping to strike a chord with these phone-dependant oikes.
"Hmmm, you'll have to take your bags to 'Oversize Luggage' to get them on the plane but we can't be certain they'll be put on the flight. It's your own faults." said orange face number three unsympathetically.
And so we were allowed to check in, safe in the knowledge that we may be wearing the same trolleys for the next three days. Lovely.
Things continued in the same vane at security where I had my swiss card confiscated, although I was allowed to post it back to my home address.
The lads jogged ahead while I filled in the necessary paperwork. This further delay prompted the airport tannoy to request my presence at the gate immediately. I was forced to break into a run, not exactly my idea of having a good time.
We all caught the flight and so did our luggage, which was nice. We picked up the hire car with minimum fuss and hit the road.
It took a little while for the lads to relax, as I drove around the first roundabout we encountered, the wrong way. No harm done though as the roads of northern Spain carry much less traffic than the U.K.
The rest of the journey was unremarkable, the boys played golf in the back on their mobiles while the team leader got some much needed beauty sleep in the front.
We crossed the border into Portugal and the already excellent highways improved further and the already quiet roads virtually became our own. I was able to pick my 'racing line' as we roared along. Bliss.
Our first objective on our arrival in Braga was to book ourselves into some digs before we could begin our pre-match preparations in earnest. We asked a lovely policewoman for directions to the Ibis Hotel, which we had previously seen signs for. Her helpful and concise directions led us in completely the wrong direction and we ended up at the Hotel Estacao in the city's north. It was cheap at fifty euros per twin room and it was fine. Right up our street to be exact.
Upon unpacking our gear we discovered that we'd forgotten to bring any charcoal or crayons for our planned day of brass-rubbing in Braga's many cathedrals. Undeterred we hit the streets in search of an art suppliers outlet.
We thought we'd call into the nearest bar for some directions as the local police had proven to be enthusiastic but inept guides.
Unable to speak Portuguese we used the international sign for brass-rubbing and shouted "CHAR-COAL" really slowly at people in the bar. Unfortunately they could not help us in our quest for supplies but we ended up having a good old drink with them anyway.
It soon became apparent that the Portuguese are excellent and most welcoming hosts, not to mention master bakers. It also became apparent that we wouldn't be getting much brass-rubbing done today as the beer and boiled eggs began to flow.
We soon found ourselves in the town square with lots of other Spurs fans enjoying the rare opportunity to soak up a bit of March sunshine. Braga is a beautiful place, their beer is cheap and it's people are short on height but big on friendliness.
We spent the entire day in and around the square, eating, drinking and being merry.
After an hours worth of power-napping back at the hotel, we went to the game. The ground was twenty-odd minutes walk away but we caught a cab anyway.
The stadium is a very impressive place, built into a sheer-face rocky hillside, it must have been a hell of a construction job getting this bad boy built.
As for the game, I left at half-time as I was starting to feel the effects of alcohol withdrawal and was in serious danger of sobering up, so I headed for the nearest beer and boiled egg dispensary. I found one in no time and watched the second half in there along with a load of tight-fisted Braga fans.
I continued happily on my solo bar-crawl until the lads and I were reunited in the bar nearest to our hotel. They'd enjoyed a much livelier second half seeing Spurs win 3-2 after being held goalless in the first half. The only downside to their evening was being subjected, along with many other Spurs fans, to a little bit of riot police brutality at the end of the game. It was nothing too serious though and the three of them managed to evade the liberally swinging batons of the Portuguese equivalent of SA Stormtroopers, the notorious GNR.
We wiled away the rest of the evening eating boiled eggs, drinking beer and talking bollocks. Which was, pretty much, what we'd been doing all day anyway.
Day Two saw us all remarkably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the breakfast table plotting our route north. We opted for the more scenic road running parallel to the motorway , or autovia, through lots of little towns and villages. When I say we, I actually mean Cliff, our illustrious leader.
After an hour of travelling we'd covered only about twenty kms and, by now, we had all seen enough Portuguese villages for a while, so we decided to try and rejoin the autovia. With ex-RAF bumboy Cliff on navigational duties, this turned out to have near disastrous consequences.
I will summarise, for the sake of my readers, what turned out to be a five hour journey into the Portuguese wilderness. A good deal of it off-road. And, believe me, off-road in a Seat Ibiza is neither fun nor a good idea. How we made it is beyond me. We crossed a complete National Park. A mountainside National Park. In a Seat Ibiza. A Seat Ibiza that I was responsible for.
To cut a long and uneventful story short we ended up in the sleepy northern Spanish town of Villagarcia de Arousa, about 70 miles from Braga. It took us the best part of six hours to get there.
To relieve the stress of the day we decided to partake of a beverage or six and we set about the task with a zest unrivalled by anything else I have ever witnessed. In the last twenty four hours anyway.
Villagarcia is a nice place and we had a good night there. One day I would like to return and have a proper look at it.
Next day we got up late, missed breakfast and raced to the airport. We arrived at check-in right on the bell.
This time the orange faces weren't as orange and were much nicer to us, even allowing us to check-in our bags without giving us any shit for turning up late and looking like we'd spent the last three days wearing the same trolleys.
How nice, I like it here.
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