Joining the queue properly, waiting your turn – no problem because there are three counters open, staffed and all. Hurray. I just rolled off the Flixbus and ran to the train station.
Became a Flixbus fan in a short time
It was a discovery of nephew Bart who came by in November to help out. No, wait a minute, actually it was a discovery by friend Anja, who ran a guesthouse in Coimbra for years and knew EVERYTHING about how to do what where, how to get there, and why. Five-star hostesses know that. (In the countryside, the Portuguese guests always arrived in their own cars, the campers too obviously, and the other holidaymakers had a rental car, so I didn’t need to know that.)
If you fly to Porto, it is a bit more complicated than to Lisbon. The airport in the capital is located almost in the middle of the city, so it is a maximum 10-minute ride to the train station by bus or taxi. In Porto, you have to take the metro first, transfer to another metro, then walk to the train station, and usually transfer again. As a native speaker, I even find the metro complicated with all those color schemes.
Anja texts in response to my question: “Yeees, very easy-peasy! Turn right off the plane, straight into the bus, it’s signposted, just check their site.” And it certainly is easy-peasy, and it is signposted too! Wow! They also leave delightfully early, because despite all the convenience, you still have to be there on time, at the airport. So I am at Coimbra at 6:45, where various blue (Rede Expressos) and green (Flix) buses are waiting to depart. Now I just need to figure out how to get in.
I very foolishly and old-fashionedly printed out the things I received by email, so I am the only one standing there waving a stack of A4 sheets. The Modern Human takes out the phone, clicks a few times, holds it under the driver’s phone, and is allowed to board. “This is not valid as a boarding pass; you received an email with the boarding pass,” the driver says with a wrinkled nose at my A4 sheets (it is still early), but fortunately he does help me along, because even though it is easy, you do have to follow the rules.
“Your name?” he asks, and scrolls through the entire passenger list on his phone. And sure enough, my name is on it, so I am allowed in. At the airport, I am back to my senses and wave my boarding pass on my phone to open the gate, so I am not that stupid and old as you might think. I should have downloaded the Flix app. How should I know? They hadn’t mentioned that on the site. Perhaps because everyone books on their phone anyway.
Besides Flixbus, there are also Rede Expressos and BlaBla Car Bus
The latter runs only once a day, as far as I can tell, and Rede Expressos runs just as often as Flixbus. They all cost about the same, and they all do and offer about the same things, except that with Flixbus, for a few euros more, you can book the seat next to you as well. Which, of course, I do immediately. If you want to know everything about bus travel, just click through here.
Right. All that easy online hassle is fine, but when I rush into the train station, I am actually glad that the ticket counters are open and that there are people sitting there. No need to spend any more time searching for a machine willing to sell me a ticket to Bifuração de Lares. It has been a long sit.
Next to me at the ticket counter stands a chubby couple with large suitcases, trying to buy a ticket to Coimbra-A, the terminal station in the heart of Coimbra. It is being renovated and is no longer in service. The buses have taken over. The ticket clerk apparently speaks little to no English, and when I realize this, and have scored my ticket, I lean over to them and say: “Coimbra-A is closed, you can’t go there by train anymore. You could take a bus or a taxi.”
The woman looks at me as if I stink of poop. The man resembles his well-maintained rolling suitcase so much that you automatically don’t speak to him, and I just add: “I would take a taxi, it’s the easiest.” And after this ill-received good deed, I make a hasty exit. I chuckle to myself as they walk past me afterwards, grumbling about the Portuguese and public transport.
“Probably Americans,” I think to myself. Apologies if this turns out to be a prejudice.
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(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings.#Flixbus #RedeExpressos #train )
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere. Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.