This post covers the second part of our visit to Lisbon back in February, so if you haven’t read part 1 you can check that out here. Part 1 ended with us heading for lunch with some people we had met on a walking tour, and we were hoping to try somewhere recommended by our tour guide João. Unfortunately, when we found the restaurant, it was closed, with a notice on the shutter advising the owners were on holiday.
Arriving in Lisbon onboard the A321 ‘retrojet’ of TAP Airlines Portugal (read about that here), we had made our way through the airport, onto the Metro and to our hotel in the Saldanha area of the city. With bags dropped off, we made our way back out into the city to begin exploring and decided to start our visit as many do, with a bus tour.
Founded in March 1945 as Transportes Aéreos Portugueses, TAP Air Portugal (TAP) is the national airline of Portugal and connects the Iberian nation with 90 destinations in 34 countries. One of those destinations is London Heathrow and back at the start of February we were at the London airport around 0600 ready to catch TAP’s first flight of the day to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.
Due to the oddity of train timetables and my attempt to make the most of the day, Episode 15 of Exploring the East Coast actually started midway through Episode 16, with me catching a train from East Linton. A short ride four stations back down the East Coast Mainline (ECML) brought me to Wallyford, the first of two stations being covered in this episode and from where I could to the other, Musselburgh.
The Glasgow Subway has been in operation for more than 125 years, since the first service ran on 14th December 1896, and since then there have only been two generations of rolling stock. The Subway’s first generation of rolling stock lasted more than 80 years, from 1896 through to 1977 when the Subway was closed for modernisation, and the current second generation was introduced when the line re-opened in 1980. This second generation of rolling stock isn’t going to make it to 80 years of service though as this year the third generation of rolling stock is starting to be introduced.
I’d arrived in Zurich on a Croatia Airlines flight from Split and had just under four hours in the Swiss airport until the last leg of Snoozing to Split. This final flight was with Helvetic Airways, operating on behalf of Swiss, from Zurich to London City Airport.
Flights & Times 