Although we had intentions of an Easter break with the UK family this year, it was one week before the school holiday and there was still no plan.
My hubby said he’d like to go to Porto in Portugal for a visit to his business partner. We could all go and our children could play with the partner’s daughter who was also going to be there.
The cheapest flights on Easyjet were £680 (without luggage) for the 5 of us. And the dates for that price were only for a 4 day stay in the first week – going Sunday and coming back Thursday. If you added luggage and car hire we’d be looking at £1k at least.
So I said to hubby “if we’re going to spend that much money, why not take our car, go down in the ferry, and spend the whole 2 weeks? We can visit your partner for a few days and then go see our family in Lisbon for a few days”.
And that is how our first road trip as a family of 5 started. I booked the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander (Spain) and I booked a B&B for the first night in Portugal so we could break the trip down to Porto in two.
Let me tell you in advance so I don’t have to repeat it in every paragraph – I had a lot of stress this holiday. Dealing with 3 small children (plus hubby) is not easy. And being the controlling Mother Hen that I am, I lost my wits a couple of times… or more 😉
Back to the trip… We arrived in Santander in the evening and got on the road. My hubby created a clever IT solution whereby we had our very own wifi network in the car and the kids could use the ipad, the nexus and the phones to watch movies we had on a laptop (acting as a server). Don’t ask me how it works, it just does. We had electric power too! That kept the kids calm most of the time, except when both of them wanted the same device 😉
We stopped for dinner at a roadside hotel. The meal was lovely. As expected (although not planned), the dinner break took hours. After all the eating, I went to change Miss A’s nappy, then I went to get Mr A’s pyjamas on and finally Miss Z’s too. I got jumbled up with the time difference in Spain and the fact that our GPS time was still in GMT. Add the time it took us in the restaurant and we arrived at the B&B at 2am (instead of 11pm as I had planned).
The B&B was lovely. It was expensive though so we only stayed one night. It was in the Montesinho Natural Park, at the northwest corner of Portugal. Set in pine tree forests in the mountains, a little village made of stone houses… just lovely!
We spent the next few days in a village near Porto with my hubby’s business partner who is also a very good friend. His daughter and Miss Z are only a few months apart, and although she doesn’t speak a word of English, it was great seeing them interact and play as if they were best friends.
We stayed in Porto a couple of days more than planned because our A/C in the car decided to go bye byes. As it happens the repair wasn’t successful, as we found 1 hour after leaving Porto to go down south… €357 lighter that is… oh well…
As with every trip with kids, an estimated trip of 4 hours takes at least 6, and in our case it’s about 8. We arrived in Almada (just south of the Tagus river) around 9,30pm and went for dinner before going to my Godparents house. My parents have builders in the house and we couldn’t stay there. Ah, and we didn’t tell anyone apart from my Godmother that we were coming. It was an Easter surprise for the whole family.
The next few days were quite nice. The weather was great and the kids got to play with all the kids in my Godparents’s complex, including their 4 cousins. There was some quality time with the grandparents and we even managed to see my sister and her family.
On the way back I booked a one night stay in a hostel in Salamanca. This is a lovely town. I find it so romantic with the lovely old buildings (and the new ones looking like the old ones). It was the only place that, at short notice, had a family room available big enough for 5. And even though it was only 2 stars, it didn’t disappoint. Plus, it had 6 beds, which I took as a sign that we can have one more baby 😉
As I write this blog post in the car, on our drive to Santander to catch the ferry back, I can’t help but feel happy… with a little giggle inside me. Yes, it was stressful, yes there were moments of shouting, crying and several stays in the naught step. There was arguing with hubby, and there was tension because of the car troubles. But there was also a lot of fun, ice-creams and cakes, yummy and fatty food, smiles, love, beautiful scenery, some wild animals (deer, rabbits) and farm animals (cows, horses, sheep) roaming freely in the hills and much needed quality time with friends and family.
Now I’m ready for the trip back, and a much needed rest when the kids go back to school 😉