My Most Treacherous Journey

For my mum's birthday, we decided to rent a house in the very north of Portugal for the early May bank holiday and planned for various family members to be there. Although we're away for my mum's birthday most years, it's always a last-minute affair, and this year was no exception. Furthermore, my boyfriend couldn't take any annual leave for the trip so by the time we booked our flights to Porto, it was an abominable £400 each for three days in the north of Portugal.

Nonetheless, we'd promised that we'd go so we coughed up the moolah and packed our bags. Despite a chaotic workweek leading up to the weekend, we managed to sort everything out so all we had to do in the morning of my mum's birthday was wake up at 2am, get in the car bound for Gatwick and catch our 5:20am flight. This meant we'd land in Porto at 7:45am and be at the house in the north by 8:30am. Easy peasy.

A day to remember

We hopped in the car and about 10 minutes into our journey, my dad called saying that their house alarm had been triggered and asked us to check it out. We had plenty of time to get to the airport and their house was nearby so we took a quick detour to the house to see what was up. This was the first of many things that would go wrong for us that day.

As we approached my parents' house, we noticed that a traffic light nearby wasn't working, and on arrival to the house, the garage wouldn't open and the outdoor lights weren't turning on, which I found strange. It turned out there was a power cut in the neighbourhood, which had triggered the alarm. Once we'd checked the house and the premises, we locked up and continued on our journey to the airport.

Since we had already checked in and had no luggage other than backpacks, we headed straight through departures and into a lounge, where we enjoyed a hearty breakfast. Although the departure board stated that the flight was boarding, I'd waited for enough flights to know that the departure board is often inaccurate and nine out of ten times, when the board says "boarding", they often haven't even opened the plane door yet. Therefore, we took it easy and by the time we headed over, the board said "gate closing". It was over 30 minutes until our flight so I wasn't very worried, but we made our way over regardless. By the time we reached the gate however, it was empty other than three EasyJet staff, and they all saw us approach, though one man then walked through the gate, closing it on his way out. We arrived at 4:53am and the lady said that it was too late and the gate had closed. We couldn't believe it as we could see people queuing just past the gate to board the plane, our flight was only scheduled for 5:20am, and the man had seen us arriving. Furthermore, they knew exactly who we were as they addressed us by name. Nonetheless, the lady insisted that we were three minutes late and she'd asked the other man whether to let us on and since he'd decided not to, there was nothing she could do. Another staff member explained that they didn't want to delay the aircraft and that there was another one flying out later that would cost £110 to get. He also said that if we'd checked in luggage, they'd have let us on, but since we didn't, it was easier to leave without us, which was charming.

There was no point discussing it any further, especially as it had been our fault, so we thanked them and headed back to the main departure terminal to find another flight. At this point, I was sad but not too deflated as we'd been told that there was another flight we could get. Obviously, having spent £400 on our original flights, we weren't super excited by the prospect of spending an additional £110, but it meant we'd make it in time for my mum's birthday. However, as we started looking up available flights to Porto, we kept getting "no results found", and when we got to the information desk in the main departure lounge, not only was it confirmed that the £110 flight wasn't actually available, but there weren't any available flights to Porto from any London airport. I couldn't help but cry and the staff were super sweet and helpful, but all they could offer us was a flight to Lisbon, which would land at 8:30pm, meaning we'd only get to the house past midnight, so I'd miss my mum's entire birthday entirely.

Instead, we found a flight to Madrid, landing at 1:30pm, where my dad would then pick me up from and we'd then drive six hours back to the house. It would be exhausting, but it was the best option we could come up with at 5am on the bank holiday weekend. The flight was from Gatwick's other terminal, so we had to be escorted out of the airport (which was a first for me, so was quite interesting), and then we got the shuttle to the north terminal for our next flight.

Annoyingly, we couldn't download our boarding passes so had to collect them from the check-in desk, however this only opened three hours before our flight, meaning that we'd have to wait until 7am (i.e. over an hour) by the counter until it opened. If I recall correctly, it opened slightly early, so we then went through security all over again and back to another lounge for a second breakfast.

This time, the second that our gate was announced, we headed over, and surprise surprise, the flight was delayed. Furthermore, for this airline the gate only closed 15 minutes before takeoff (unlike EasyJet, which was 30 minutes), but as is typical, the inbound flight was delayed, meaning that we only set off 40 minutes after the scheduled time.

What we hadn't considered is that Spain is one hour ahead of the UK, so there was no way my dad could make it in time. Fortunately, my brother had found an option that meant we'd be at the house by 5:30pm and would cut my dad's driving time down from 12 hours to just three hours. However, this was all contingent on us making a 2:40pm train. It was already tight, as we were meant to land at 1:30pm, but it was definitely possible and would make everyone's life much easier. Nonetheless, the flight left 40 minutes late, and was circling for so long over Madrid airport, that by the time we landed it was past 2pm and there was no way we could get through passport control, grab a cab, and make the train in time.

This meant that there was no way we were getting to the house before 8:30pm, and our back up plan was instead to get a train to a small town called Medina del Campo (near Salamanca), which my dad would also make his way to, and then driving for four hours to the house. The train was only at 3:50pm so we'd definitely make it in time but by this point we'd been awake for over 12 hours, hadn't eaten for the five hours, and were still over six hours from our destination. We were tired and hungry, and about to be tested further.

I have a European passport and my boyfriend has a British passport, and as we got to passport control in Madrid Airport, my boyfriend was directed to a separate queue, and when I said that we were together, I was told to go with him. As we reached the front of the queue, I was then told I couldn't be in this queue so had to join the back of the EU queue. This would've been slightly frustrating in normal circumstances, but given the day we'd had, I was absolutely beat.

Our next challenge was making it to the train station. Google Maps directed us from Terminal 1, where we'd landed, to the train station via a free shuttle that'd take us to Terminal 4, and then a specific train which would take us to the station. The shuttle was easy enough, although it was pouring with rain in Madrid (talk about pathetic fallacy!). As we reached Terminal 4, we followed the signs to the 'Cercanías' trains and bought a ticket to the station (including a surcharge for the physical card and an additional fee for being in an airport). We entered the barriers, only to realise that we'd accidentally gone through the metro barriers rather than the Cercanías barriers as they were by the ticket machines and bang right in the middle. Luckily, a kind staff member informed us that we could get to the train station via the metro too, although this involved three changes and took a while. Furthermore, one of the stops we passed was Terminal 1, which was tragic.

Nonetheless, we finally made it to the train station, which was under major construction, and bought tickets to Medina del Campo. Not only were the tickets quite pricey, but we also were required to provide our passport number, email and phone number, which I found very unusual compared to when purchasing train tickets in the UK. We also had to put our bags through a scanner, so by the time we actually got on the train, we only had ten minutes to spare. By this point, I was very hungry and very tired, and although I didn't get a wink of sleep on the train, we did share a sandwich which sorted me right out.

My brother had also found a restaurant with tapas and vino just a seven-minute walk from the station, and since we had to wait around an hour for my dad to pick us up, I couldn't wait to enjoy some pinchos and have a drink. Of course, this would've been too easy. As we arrived to the station, there was very little movement and the area seemed pretty derelict. As it turns out, the station actually shares its name with another station to the north of the town, which is the one by the town centre. Instead, we were in the middle of nowhere and the nearest restaurant was a 30-minute walk away. I didn't have the energy to figure out how and where to go, so instead we sat in the train station for just under an hour waiting for my dad to arrive.

Thankfully, by the time my dad (and brother as it turned out!) arrived, the sun was out and they'd brought some snacks and drinks for us to enjoy, including pastéis de nata from my favourite café in Porto, which I was very grateful for! We stopped quickly for a coffee and some snacks, before getting back on the road and heading towards the house. My brother and dad took turns driving and by 8:30pm, an entire twelve hours later than anticipated, we arrived at the house. I was running on a mere three hours of sleep at this point and had been travelling for over 18 hours, but we'd managed to make it for my mum's birthday dinner and that's all that mattered. We set up the birthday banner and balloons and after enjoying dinner and singing happy birthday, we also enjoyed some cookies I'd made the previous night. My mum was very glad to have us there and it was nice to see some family based on the mainland who I hadn't seen in a while! I was also finally reunited with my parents' dog after ten weeks of being apart, which I'd been very much looking forward to.

The rest of the weekend was lovely; the house was completely kitted out and had a games room with a pool table and various board games, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a football table, a ping pong table and more! We spent the weekend swimming and playing dominoes in the sun with wine in hand, making use of all of the amenities in the house, playing 'The White Castle' (a board game) for the first time, and even visiting Portugal's only national park, Gerês. Despite the treacherous journey (and over £1,000 down the drain just on our travels), it was a lovely weekend, although I pray to never have a day like that again.

Of course, it goes without saying that we missed the flight through nobody's fault but our own, however the bit that still gets me is that we were three minutes late to the gate, and the flight ended up taking off nine minutes early. That's the real kick in the teeth. We had an additional 12 hours of travelling all because a man in power decided to say "no".