Tales of a travel addict:I HAVE JUST experienced my first ever package holiday and it has been a revelation. They are definitely the untold secret of travel. I only wish someone had thought to tell me before.
I flew to Lisbon on a regular Aer Lingus flight which was my first epiphany, as I thought package tours used ex-Aeroflot cargo planes departing after midnight. My second was being met by a clipboard-wielding tour rep in a bright orange skirt who smiled radiantly and told me to relax while she gathered the rest of her flock.
This meant that instead of crouching on my backpack frantically working out my bearings, I was able to sit back licking an ice cream until this lovely woman held aloft her sign and shepherded us to an awaiting coach parked right outside the airport. How amazing is that! No fraught struggle to work out the public transport system or a heated exchange with a taxi driver in pigeon Esperanto. Instead, I just sat in the air-conditioned coach as our divine shepherdess, Tina Mendes, gave us a brief introduction to the region. She then handed each of us a personalised package with maps and guides, her contact details, and the times she’d be available in our hotel lobby for queries.
Tina, I think I love you. How I longed for you in the jungles of Borneo, in the mountains of Nepal, in the ice-floes of Greenland. From now on, I want you with me wherever I go, leading me on, clipboard aloft. I am now a born-again tourist and a lapsed traveller. No more wandering along the solitary path. I am a biddable drone, guided by the whims of any white-bloused tour leader with a clipboard.
In fact, the Irish citizenry ought never leave the country again unless chaperoned by these blessed folk at Sunway, Falcon, Budget, JWT, etc.
If you remain unconvinced, just let me tell, there was a slight mix-up with the booking and so the hotel I was led to had never heard of me and was booked out.
A fiasco! I hear you say. A holiday nightmare spent sleeping rough under a bridge. Not a bit of it. Tina, my benevolent necromancer merely made a few calls, before leading me to her car to drive me to another hotel.
Alas, the resort had none of the elements Rupert Murdoch’s papers and TV stations had lead me to expect – no foam parties or wet T-shirt competitions, but it did have pristine beaches, good seafood cafés, elegant fin-de-siècle architecture and was only 35 minutes by train from Lisbon.
It was called Estoril and is considered the Monaco of Portugal, with a fine casino that inspired Ian Fleming, a few remaining doddery chatelaines of European monarchy and a racing track that used to hold Formula 1 races.
But what clinched it for me was Pastelaria Garret, one of the finest patisseries in Portugal. Twenty minutes’ walk further along the coast is the resort of Cascais, a traditional fishing town at heart with a cutting edge art gallery devoted to Paula Rego and a designer hotel, brimming with reserved ostentation, built into the walls of a 16th century harbour fortress.
Now that I know about these “package holiday” things, (which I’m told are not just confined to Portugal) I will return. I need to further explore the nearby Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, a lushly-forested mountainous area dotted with the palaces, monasteries and summer residences of kings and aristocrats. It is an architectural charm bracelet of royal power and commercial wealth from Portugal’s golden era.
Tina was disappointed to learn that I had spent only a single day there – its Moorish castles and misty forests deserve more attention. I want to go trekking there – possibly with Tina as standard-bearer.