Jan 22: Getting OUT is supposed to be the difficult part

But getting to the start point is proving to be a challenge!

For a bit of light relief I thought I’d check on bus/train options for how to get to the start: Cabo St Vincent in Portugal.

Trains+buses are always the preferred option, but Google says it’s 1 day 14 hours and quite expensive and involves getting a bike across Paris which is a challenge it’s best to avoid. (To be fair, Google just said the 1 day 14 hour part: the rest was me editorializing.)

So it had to be flights. The two closest airports are Lisbon and Seville. Unfortunately there’s no trains to go the rest of the way. Buses: Flixbus is a known, good safe way to transport bikes to exotic places for a nice price. But for some weird reason all service to the region stopped a few days before I want to travel. :( I searched forward a few months and it didn’t resume; maybe service is ending altogether…

Happily there’s another bus service (Alsa) which will take care of it.

Booking a bike onto a KLM flight is not obvious; you need to book the ticket first. Then view your booking on the website and buy additional luggage. Bikes cost 55 euro … but to complete the booking you need to specify the dimensions.

Since I’m looking at getting a new bike, this does complicate things! If only I hadn’t been organized and just booked a flight to Lisbon. I guess I’ll need to get that moving ASAP.

UPDATE: Maybe Flixbus not taking bookings in April is because they only allow bookings three months in advance? Let’s see if it changes in a week.