Made it -and our bags did too!

I swore I would never ever transfer in Heathrow after our experience last year, which was one for the record books (we made a 45 minute connection when our plane from Lisbon was an hour late into London, but it wasn't pretty). But that was where the re-routing sent us, and since we had five hours, I figured we wouldn't have to rush.

The very nice woman in the BA lounge told me she was pretty sure my bags had made it from Chicago. I took that as a good sign and when we arrived in Lisbon at 4:30, instead of the 9 am arrival I had booked, our bags were there. YAY.

Got the rental car, got out of town quickly, but it was a a five hour drive. I had a cup of coffee and got behind the wheel. At 10:30 or thereabouts, we rolled into our hotel. We have a room with a balcony looking over the castle. Rather than drink our welcome glass of wine in the bar, we are going to sit out on the balcony and breathe, just like Kathy told me to! Who else gives you a glass of wine to welcome you other than pousadas and paradores?!

I saw that our hotel has a one star Michelin restaurant and the food doesn't look too out there -- no foam at all in sight on the pictures I see in the brochure. So we will splurge a little and eat there tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will spend the day in Bragança and I will probably just sit on the balcony and not do anything while Joe naps.Read more