It's a 20 mile journey from Oporto airport terminal to the car rental concession, if you miss the turning. We are sent around a spaghetti of freeways before getting the opportunity to turn back. But finally we can return the car and try to check in, only to find the flight cancelled.

We are told to join a long queue at a service-desk but I persuade the Star-gold checkin to simply check us in to the next flight. That's TP1967, some 4 hours later, but the TAP lounge is welcoming and my Star-gold card gets two of us in, the third person paying 19 euros, good value considering the quality and amount of port we got through.

Our friends who took the express train have arrived in Lisbon in under 3 hours, and are waiting outside the hotel. We all have to check in together, because...

...We are staying at the Pousada Dona Maria, formerly the Royal Palace and normally rather expensive. Pousada is the name for a hotel which is a converted palace or mansion, and this year the website offers a massive discount if you are aged over 60. We need 3 rooms and exactly 3 of our party are over 60, so the rooms are booked in their names.

And they do scan the passports when you check in to make sure you really are that old.

TP1967 is a 35 minute Airbus hop OPO-LIS, no time for food or drink. We sit in economy 11a,b,c and are quite comfortable.

Lisbon airport is less of a shambles than we had expected and soon we are outside our hotel in Queluz, tracking down a most enticing smell of grilling meat coming from a churrasceria over the road. It's a workers' cafe but the food is glorious, surely better than the two fashionable looking restaurants alongside, and we don't have the appetitie for the 19 course spectacular offered by the hotel.