It’s time for another installment of Pat & Jim’s excellent adventures.

Portugal has always been ‘on the list’ – at least in part because it is the home of Port wine. Since doing my research I’ve learned its wine country (the Douro Valley) is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I think we’ll see some pretty scenery in addition to drinking good wine.

This trip didn’t seem as exotic as our last two (South Africa and Turkey), and didn’t require internal flights, so I decided to plan this one myself, without the aid of a travel agent. We’ll see what trouble we get into – especially when we drive from Cascais to Porto.

Tonight we start with the battle of American Airlines. We couldn’t check in online – we suspect because we got new passports this summer. Hopefully the next post will actually be from Portugal – and we won’t be taking a staycation in New Jersey.

Off we go!