Gregg Covers Sport

In a bid to escape the winter blues in England, myself and my carer jetted off for a long weekend in the Portuguese capital, experiencing culture and European Football. Here’s what we got up to!

Day 1 – Airports and the hotel

Day 1 started in a grey, overcast London. We were flying from London Gatwick at 15:55, and so got on the underground at around 11:45 heading to London Bridge. From there we boarded the Thameslink service to Brighton that calls at Gatwick Airport. I am very fortunate that the route to Gatwick from my university is straightforward and all wheelchair accessible, needing only to speak to staff at London Bridge to organise a ramp once I got to Gatwick.

As many fellow electric wheelchair users will know, flying with your chair can be very arduous, and is very dependent on the airline. We were flying with TAP Air Portugal who, to their credit, were excellent with my chair. No hassle around chair weight or battery type, the whole check-in process was as pain-free as I have ever experienced. We grabbed food in the airport after getting through security (shoutout Vagabond restaurant for the delicious all-day breakfast) and then headed to the gate. By now I know the routine at airports, including the process of getting on the plane itself. The dreaded aisle chair. It’s far too small, especially for someone who is 6″2, and I end up looking like a gangly mess as one of the special assistance team undoubtedly has to put their back out carrying my feet. It’s embarrassing and humiliating, and in 2024 (where we have self-driving cars and are pushing space travel as a luxury commodity), it is just laughable that you can not take your chair on a plane, or at the very least having a more humane system in place.

The flight itself was quick and pleasant, and the Portuguese special assistance were extremely helpful. Once reunited with my chair, we headed to the metro station to get to the hotel, only to discover the lifts at the nearest station were down (something that would be a common theme throughout our trip), and so it was a 35 minute bus journey instead. Fortunately, the large majority of buses are equipped with ramps, and ticket prices are very reasonable (£1.50 for any single journey). We checked in to our hotel, situated just 15 minutes north of the city centre, where we we met by exceptionally friendly staff (special mention to Edson, absolute legend), and a very nice accessible room, with a level access wet-room and easy opening doors. With that, we hit the head, and prepared for our first full day in Lisbon.

Day 2 – Sight-seeing and weather-dodging

Having kept a keen eye on the weather forecast in the run-up to the trip, I knew the weather wasn’t meant to be the greatest. In fact on that Friday it was mean to absolutely throw it down all day, with an extreme weather warning for waves in affect for the majority of the weekend (just what you want on holiday haha). Friday morning I nipped next door to Aldi to grab some breakfast (an 0.89 cent euro and a 0.14 euro banana seemed like better value than the 15 euro per person breakfast at the hotel) and set about walking down into the city centre. The weather, whilst a little grey at times and chilly in the wind, was dry for the large majority of the late morning early afternoon, which meant we could get about and see some sights. Lisbon is a lovely city, and it was lovely walking through the streets adorned with shops, cafes and patisserie’s. We got to the main square (Praca do Comercio) which overlooks the Tagus river, and the wind definitely picked up, but the square was still stunning, with views of the 25th of April bridge (very similar to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco) and the Christ the King statue (extremely similar to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro) off in the distant. There was time for a few photos before we needed to hot-foot it back to the hotel before the heavy rain arrived, and it was the hotel where we would remain for the remainder of the day as the heavy rain did indeed arrive. I did enjoy watching it lash down whilst tucking into a delicious veal cheeseburger in the hotel bar that evening.

Day 3 – Ticket hunting

As you know I am a huge football fan, and so whilst here in Lisbon I did want to take in a football game. I didn’t mind which of the two teams I saw, but I did know that Benfica’s stadium would be a lot easier to get to, so Saturday was spent checking out potential routes to the stadium for Sunday’s game, and buying a ticket. If you want to read more about my experience at a Benfica match, you can find the post on my blog by clicking the link here.

Day 4 – Sightseeing, football, and the journey home

Sunday was the day that, supposedly, was the best weather wise, and indeed that morning the sun was out for the first time. We again made our way down into the city centre, walking a different route this time to see more of downtown Lisbon, before making our way up some steep roads to visit Lisbon Cathedral, which is a gorgeous building. Lisbon is known as ‘the city of seven hills’ given it is built around seven hills, which does make accessibility somewhat of a challenge, and one that was too much for my chair as we tried to venture to the old neighbourhood of Alfama, as when the rain started to fall we gave up on our pursuit. I must give a massive shoutout to my carer Clinton, who helped get me up and down many kerbs and pushed me up some very steep roads. On our way back we again stopped at Praca do Comercio, this time bathed in sunshine, and the views were even more spectacular than they had been on Friday. There was still time to try a Portuguese delicacy, Pastel de Nata, which is a sweet custard set into pastry, although it’ll come as no surprise to those of you that know me that I wasn’t a fan.

We got back to the hotel to rest, charge my chair, and eat some dinner, before heading out again to watch Benfica, which was an incredible experience, and one you can read all about in my previous post.

We got back from Benfica at around midnight, and we knew we had to leave at 3am to catch the night bus that would take us to the airport for our flight home at 7am. This meant we got just 90 minutes sleep before we had to pack up, check out and walk 25 minutes to the bus stop. I must admit cruising the empty streets and roads of Lisbon in the middle of the night was a cool experience, and the night bus was a swift service. Once at the airport, again there was no hassle from TAP about any detail of my chair, they checked it in with ease and took it away to prepare for stowing. Our only issue came when I was on the tarmac of the airport, ready to board the plane, when the ground-staff then decided to tell us that if we can’t fold my chair to fit, we wouldn’t be allowed to fly and would have to wait till the 13:20 flight. After a brief conversation asking why they had decided to wait this long to inform us about folding it down, we managed to fold it down enough (just about) and boarded the plane.

Another pleasant flight later and we touched down at an extremely grey and gloomy Gatwick, where another lovely trip on the dreaded aisle chair awaited me. There was a long wait for my chair to be brought up from the hold, and once we had reassembled it, we dragged our very tired bodies onto the train home, where we promptly fell asleep!

Lisbon is a gorgeous city that has a lot to offer, and I would highly recommend it as a city break, just be aware that accessibility can sometimes be an issue, especially when it rains and the cobbled streets become slippery! I will definitely be returning at some point in the future!