Our Carvoeiro holiday

[Tony Knight]

We have just returned from another very enjoyable holiday in Carvoeiro. This time we were flying by TAP from Heathrow to Lisbon (the cost being less expensive than using Monarch from Gatwick to Faro). However, on the Friday before leaving it didn't look as if we would make it. My wife checked our party in on-line to discover on the website that TAP pilots were going on strike the following day. Luckily, we discovered that those flights whose aircraft were due to return to their base at Lisbon weren't affected. As a result, only two flights left Heathrow early Saturday morning, and we were on the second. After a two hour wait at Lisbon collecting our 9 seater hire vehicle we were eventually on the road, but that wasn't an end to our problems. Although we used an international car hire company, the vehicle supplied was a long wheelbase Transit more suited for airport transfers with a luggage cage behind the rear seats. We also discovered later that evening that a headlight wasn't functioning due to the bulb being missing. After a few days we did manage to collect a much better 9 seater vehicle from the company's Portimao depot.

As for the holiday itself, we had an excellent villa in Sesmarias. We celebrated my son-in-law's 40th birthday with other members of the family also staying In Sesmarias and, once again, had a wonderful cake from the patisserie on the in-road. Our thanks to a fellow contributor for ordering it for us.

Now it's back to a typical English summer, which seems to have come to an end. Our thoughts are already about returning next year.

Tony Knight

[Archie Michael]

Well soon I will be at Gatwick airport and according your experiences I will be return by that way as you said. I am going to Gatwick for my official work and already booked a hotel through arunparking.co.uk.