I had to leave my hotel by 8AM to head to the airport this morning, but I was out of bed and up at Miradouro de Santa Catarina for sunrise at 7:20AM. It’s not the prettiest viewpoint, but it was close to my hotel (straight up several flights of stairs) and gave me a chance to spend a few minutes reflecting on my time in Lisbon before heading home.
Then it was off to the airport. Travelwise, I dealt with bus gates in both Lisbon and Dublin and holding patterns in both Dublin and Boston. I didn’t have coming home to a flat tire on my bingo card this week, but that just added a bit of excitement to an already long and tiring travel day.
I had a pain au chocolat in my room early this morning and a yogurt parfait at the Lisbon airport, so I was pretty hungry when I got to Dublin mid-afternoon. I wasn’t interested in any of the food I saw on the menu for my flight back to Boston, so I stopped at Whiskey Bread (yes, that’s the name of the restaurant – maybe becuase you can get both there?) in the US departures area for an afternoon meal. The whole menu had me drooling, but I settled on a BBQ chicken toastie, whiskey bread pudding with a vanilla custard sauce (why don’t we do more custard sauces in the US?), and an Orchard Thieves cider. Yum to all of it! (Except maybe the sandwich. I should have gone with my gut and ordered the fried chicken sandwich.)
I ended up with lots of crackers, cheese, and chutney on the plane ride to Boston which was enough to tide me over until I got home but hardly filling. I skipped the Magner’s in favor of Coke Zero, having had my fill of cider already this week. I’ve also had my fill of Coke Zero this week and the one thing I can’t wait to have at home is Diet Coke.
And just like that, we chased the sunset across the Atlantic (and crossed a very turbulent jet stream en route) and I was back home in Boston. This trip felt special not because I had a lot planned or did anything really exciting, but because I didn’t. I kind of let the trip come to me rather than going into it with any expectations. Lisbon captured my heart in a way I wasn’t expecting it to and this trip turned into one of my best vacations, possibly ever.
I still have some euros left in my wallet, which I will be saving for my next trip to Europe, just 8 weeks from now. Between now and then, I have two more (domestic) trips planned. It has been and will continue to be a travel-filled start to 2026… just the way I like it!
Traveling with Laura 