Portugal - Days 21 & 22

September 29=30, 2025: Final days in Portugal! We got up and enjoyed our veranda and sunrise for the last time in Madeira before finalizing our packing and heading to the airport. We had fast track again through security, so it was pretty easy to get to the lounge and then to our gate. We were lucky with the weather again, so the flight was calm and very easy. Then we took a Bolt to our final accommodations which was call The Homeboat Company. It is a unique place in Lisbon right in the harbor where you can stay in houseboats. I had booked the smallest one they had, but they upgraded us to their largest boat because it was available, which was so cool! It was 2 bedrooms with a living room and kitchen area as well as a jacuzzi on the roof. We were wishing we had booked a couple days at this place because it was really cool (see picture above)! Unfortunately we only had the evening to spend there and had to be out by 7:00AM the next morning to head home so we couldn’t take full advantage of the opportunity. If we got to Lisbon again in the future, we plan to book a couple days there.

In the morning, we took a Bolt back to the airport. Getting through customs for our flight to JFK was chaos. Lisbon is very understaffed and are also in the process of automating their processes. Luckily we have electronic passports and so we were able to take advantage of the new process. The other line was very long and people where getting very heated. At one point, someone cut the line and people were screaming for security. It was crazy! Our plane did not have a gate, so we had to take a bus out to it and then use stairs to board. That is typical in Lisbon because they just don’t have enough capacity for all of the flights since it has become such a popular tourist destination. Then it was a 7-1/2 hour flight to JFK. Again, we were lucky with the flight, it was very calm the whole way. Then we had to go through customs in JFK, which was a breeze, pick up our bags and re-check them through to Fort Myers. We still had two more flights at that point. One to Atlanta and another to Fort Myers. We finally got home at 10:00PM and at that point we had been up for 22 hours. We were so tired and decided to leave the unpacking until the morning. It was so nice to climb into our own bed after 6 weeks of travel. I will say that we have decided not to do these long trips in the future. We plan to break them up into smaller 3-4 week trips instead. That being said, we really enjoyed this adventure. I plan to do one more blog post with my overall impressions of the two beautiful countries we visited.