Lisbon-Brussels (with pictures)
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Lisbon-Brussels (with pictures)
On Sunday October 2, I flew back from Lisbon to Brussels on board the Boeing 737-300 of Virgin Express. (flight TV503 scheduled departure 9:50 local time)
I would like to share the experience from getting up in our hostel (student´s are not rich ) to arriving in Brussels.
Oeiras, Portugal (a small town not to far from Lisbon) . A picture of our hostel.
I got up at 6am, quickly washed and put all my stuff in my bag, at around 6:25 I was ready. 6:25 was the time we had arranged to leave the hostel since the train station was about a 15-20min walk and since our train would leave at 6:46. Anyway we left our hostel only at 6:30 since one friend had overslept. Since it is a 20min walk and the train would leave in 16 minutes you can imagine that we had to hurry.
Fortunately we arrived at 6:45 at the station, I told the others to hold the train while I would buy our 7 train tickets. Trust me ... those vending machines are f***ing slow when you want to buy 7 tickets. Luckily for me the others held the train long enough and at 6:47 the doors of the train closed behind me (sorry for the 1 min delay portugeuse railways )
Below picture of one of the local Portuguese trains (this picture was ofcourse taken a couple of days earlier)
About 30 min later we arrived in Lisbon "Cais de Sodre" railway station. At this station we would need to take the bus to the airport. At this time the sun had risen and since we hadn´t missed our train the trip would be from now on pretty relaxed.
At 8:15 the bus dropped us off at Lisbon Portela International airport. The check in hall was literally crowded with people. Apparantely all TAP europe flights check in at only about 6-7 check in desks
. Luckily the 2 Virgin check in desks were reasonable efficient to handle what would appear a full flight.
A little later our bags were labeled and we received our boarding cards. Check in time read 9:20am, my seat was 23A (24 rows in the VEX 733) and our gate was A15.
The walk to the gate was in hindsight pretty far, however since it was very crowded and because in my opinion the airport had rather small aisles with lots of "turns" and shops and bars where you need to navigate through the walk seemed somewhat less far than the long straight tunnel in Brussels which you have to walk to go from the terminal to the A pier.
Either way, at around 8:50 we had arrived at our gate A15. Just in time to see the plane pulling up to the gate.
Aircraft: OO-VEH Virgin Express Boeing 737-300
Flight: TV503 Lisbon-Brussels
Seat: 23A
Loadfactor: 99%
gate: A15
Boarding commenced at 9:20am and about 9:45 everyone had boarded, but since they were still loading all the bags we only pushed back at 9:50. Which is exactly the planned departure time.
I still took this picture of an Iberia A320 EC-FLG from my seat just before we commenced push back.
We took off at 9:59 from runway 3, since I sat on the left side of the plane I didn´t have a view of the airport. But I did take these pictures:
As you know Virgin Express does not offer a free lunch or breakfast. So I had brought my own food (ok it´s far from healthy .. bread with chocolate and water) but good enough for one time
We were flying rather high at FL390 from North Spain and on we only had broken clouds and overcast so except these contrails there wasn´t much to see.
About 2.5hours later we started our descend.
Sorry for the dirty windows.
Brussels Tower can be seen in this picture.
And at 13:47 we touched down. Below a picture I took seconds before touchdown on runway 25R.
We taxxied to gate A48 and before leaving the plane I still took a picture of the cockpit.
I hope you enjoyed one of my first flight reports,
I would like to share the experience from getting up in our hostel (student´s are not rich ) to arriving in Brussels.
Oeiras, Portugal (a small town not to far from Lisbon) . A picture of our hostel.
I got up at 6am, quickly washed and put all my stuff in my bag, at around 6:25 I was ready. 6:25 was the time we had arranged to leave the hostel since the train station was about a 15-20min walk and since our train would leave at 6:46. Anyway we left our hostel only at 6:30 since one friend had overslept. Since it is a 20min walk and the train would leave in 16 minutes you can imagine that we had to hurry.
Fortunately we arrived at 6:45 at the station, I told the others to hold the train while I would buy our 7 train tickets. Trust me ... those vending machines are f***ing slow when you want to buy 7 tickets. Luckily for me the others held the train long enough and at 6:47 the doors of the train closed behind me (sorry for the 1 min delay portugeuse railways )
Below picture of one of the local Portuguese trains (this picture was ofcourse taken a couple of days earlier)
About 30 min later we arrived in Lisbon "Cais de Sodre" railway station. At this station we would need to take the bus to the airport. At this time the sun had risen and since we hadn´t missed our train the trip would be from now on pretty relaxed.
At 8:15 the bus dropped us off at Lisbon Portela International airport. The check in hall was literally crowded with people. Apparantely all TAP europe flights check in at only about 6-7 check in desks
. Luckily the 2 Virgin check in desks were reasonable efficient to handle what would appear a full flight.
A little later our bags were labeled and we received our boarding cards. Check in time read 9:20am, my seat was 23A (24 rows in the VEX 733) and our gate was A15.
The walk to the gate was in hindsight pretty far, however since it was very crowded and because in my opinion the airport had rather small aisles with lots of "turns" and shops and bars where you need to navigate through the walk seemed somewhat less far than the long straight tunnel in Brussels which you have to walk to go from the terminal to the A pier.
Either way, at around 8:50 we had arrived at our gate A15. Just in time to see the plane pulling up to the gate.
Aircraft: OO-VEH Virgin Express Boeing 737-300
Flight: TV503 Lisbon-Brussels
Seat: 23A
Loadfactor: 99%
gate: A15
Boarding commenced at 9:20am and about 9:45 everyone had boarded, but since they were still loading all the bags we only pushed back at 9:50. Which is exactly the planned departure time.
I still took this picture of an Iberia A320 EC-FLG from my seat just before we commenced push back.
We took off at 9:59 from runway 3, since I sat on the left side of the plane I didn´t have a view of the airport. But I did take these pictures:
As you know Virgin Express does not offer a free lunch or breakfast. So I had brought my own food (ok it´s far from healthy .. bread with chocolate and water) but good enough for one time
We were flying rather high at FL390 from North Spain and on we only had broken clouds and overcast so except these contrails there wasn´t much to see.
About 2.5hours later we started our descend.
Sorry for the dirty windows.
Brussels Tower can be seen in this picture.
And at 13:47 we touched down. Below a picture I took seconds before touchdown on runway 25R.
We taxxied to gate A48 and before leaving the plane I still took a picture of the cockpit.
I hope you enjoyed one of my first flight reports,
Very nice report !!
I love the pics, especially the last one , I love the Classic Boeing 737 . You bought yourself a very unique combination of food, haven't seen this on a aircraft yet
I hope you enjoyed Lisbon, as you may have noticed it's a very wonderful city. The view from the mountain next to the bridge is breathtaking.
I love the pics, especially the last one , I love the Classic Boeing 737 . You bought yourself a very unique combination of food, haven't seen this on a aircraft yet
I hope you enjoyed Lisbon, as you may have noticed it's a very wonderful city. The view from the mountain next to the bridge is breathtaking.
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No 4 euro´s for a small sandwich
1.5 for 15cl of soda . I prefer my 1.5 liter bottle of water, only costed me 50 cents 8) .
Lisbon Airport: I found it very crowded, dark and not a nice place to have a drink or to spend more time than necessary. Also everything seems to be so packed. Stores almost on top of eachother, you almost have to go through a cafetaria to go to some of the gates. So very unpleasant in that point of view. Hence we went straight to our gate, which was easy to find though. I didn´t take any pictures from the airport itself.
It´s not really a masterpiece of architecture, the gates area was in my opinion 100% plastic. So don´t go to Lisbon airport if you love architecture.
The airport staff were ok, some were a little nervous because it was so busy, but that didn´t bother me too much.
Overall I would not list Lisbon among my most favorite airports. I want a lot of room, space, light and windows where I come. I am not claustrophobic, but I don´t like dark places where everything is packed together.
1.5 for 15cl of soda . I prefer my 1.5 liter bottle of water, only costed me 50 cents 8) .
Lisbon Airport: I found it very crowded, dark and not a nice place to have a drink or to spend more time than necessary. Also everything seems to be so packed. Stores almost on top of eachother, you almost have to go through a cafetaria to go to some of the gates. So very unpleasant in that point of view. Hence we went straight to our gate, which was easy to find though. I didn´t take any pictures from the airport itself.
It´s not really a masterpiece of architecture, the gates area was in my opinion 100% plastic. So don´t go to Lisbon airport if you love architecture.
The airport staff were ok, some were a little nervous because it was so busy, but that didn´t bother me too much.
Overall I would not list Lisbon among my most favorite airports. I want a lot of room, space, light and windows where I come. I am not claustrophobic, but I don´t like dark places where everything is packed together.
- Vinnie-Winnie
- Posts: 955
- Joined: 01 Jul 2004, 00:00
- Location: London
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- Posts: 371
- Joined: 01 Jun 2004, 00:00
- Contact:
- Vinnie-Winnie
- Posts: 955
- Joined: 01 Jul 2004, 00:00
- Location: London
-
- Posts: 371
- Joined: 01 Jun 2004, 00:00
- Contact:
Not sure yet. In no specific order US, UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Australia, Canada, Switzerland. (don´t know why but protestant countries seem to attract me).
Germany or Holland only if I got a good offer. I know the latter 2 are not known for their culinary traditions, but I do believe it would be nice to live in for some years.
Would rather not want to live in Belgium , France, the Mediterranean countries, most of africa and parts of asia and the middle east. I like to visit them and still need to visit most of those regions, but personally I don´t think I would appreciate to live there full time, and to have a job there at least not with a local company.
Germany or Holland only if I got a good offer. I know the latter 2 are not known for their culinary traditions, but I do believe it would be nice to live in for some years.
Would rather not want to live in Belgium , France, the Mediterranean countries, most of africa and parts of asia and the middle east. I like to visit them and still need to visit most of those regions, but personally I don´t think I would appreciate to live there full time, and to have a job there at least not with a local company.