Day 15: Sat 19 May

It only rained lightly in the morning, so we borrowed an umbrella from the hotel and went for a walk. We also sat down for a proper lunch, in an effort to avoid the late spanish dinner. Our new plan had also been formulated and called for us to pick up our aircraft from Cascais in Portugal and fly it to Agen in France, near our final tour destination. We concentrated on making arrangements to get us to Cascais. The plan was to somehow get to Cascais from Santander on Sunday, use Monday to plan the remainder of the excursion, fly our aircraft from Cascais to Agen on Tuesday and return to Santander on Wednesday. This would ensure that we could continue with our scooters on Thursday and meet our hosts in France on Sunday.

While the plan was simple in theory, putting it into practice proved to be challenging, with rather limited flight connections out of Santander, car hire companies with restrictive operating hours and other challenges. Still, given enough time and a decent internet connection, one can usually find a solution. Well our internet connection, while much better than at the previous hotel, was still far from optimal, requiring us to repeat our login procedure every couple of minutes.

The most favorable airline connection would take us from Santander to Madrid in the morning, and from Madrid to Lisbon in the afternoon with a 6 hour layover in Madrid. While this was not too exciting, we eventually decided to use that connection. With Ryanair providing the Santander - Madrid leg and EasyJet the Madrid - Lisbon leg,  I tried to book the Ryanair flight. To my utter amazement, I learned that Ryanair had closed for business for 24 hours. They had simply shut down their website for updates and advised their clients in a notice that all ticket changes, bookings, check-ins, etc. should me made before the scheduled outage. No telephonic alternative, no emergency numbers or procedures - nothing! What a statement to make for a carrier like Ryanair which completely relies on its website for all its business.

The unavailability of Ryanair required us to use a hired car from Santander to Madrid instead. We all like to marvel at how easy things are these days, with being able to make all your bookings online yourself and not having to rely on anybody else. Well, making the required bookings for the next day took me a few hours and included the hired car from Santander to Madrid, the EasyJet flight from Madrid to Lisbon, the hired car from Lisbon To Cascais, and the hotel in Cascais.

Having completed all the necessary bookings, we ventured to the Santander airport by bus, departing from the nearby main bus terminus. We picked up the rental car and parked it close to the hotel, ready for an early morning departure in what would probably be another rainy day. The day was concluded by us enjoying a "Picnic in our room" instead of a late dinner.