A litle bit off topic, but anyway...

Covid is not the only thing to think about. So, some tips about Portugal not related to Covid:

- Flu: we are all in a rush for being vaccinated, and even today, Sunday, vaccination centers are open and giving flu vaxx. In Portugal, no one likes the flu. Employers hate it, and employees the same. Ît's a very annoying desease. So for people coming soon, probably the locals that will have more contact with you are vaccinated - guides, taxi/uber drivers, restaurants waiters, people at hotels, etc.

- Water: you can drink tap water all over Portugal. I trust tap water more than I do about botled water.

- Violence: unfortunately we are watching an increase of violence during the night for the last one year and a half. Probably for some these are just isolated events that cannot even be considerated violence, but as we are a very quiet country we portuguese are now more carefull about that period between 2am and 6am. When I say violence, I mean punches or even knifes, for nothing.

- Pickpockets and drug sellers: I must say they are trying to recover their business, this last year and a half was not good for them. Drug dealers are not selling drugs, don't waste your time denouncing them to the police (and don't buy their drugs, it's a scam), and pickpockets are very good professionals, so plase be carefull with your belongings.

Happy travels!
Helena

Thank you for the information, Helena.

To update: I called British Airways and was unable to change just our short flight London-Lisbon from one day to another, without triggering a pricing change on the whole shebang. :( Would cost an additional $7000 each to make the change. No way that’s gonna happen. So we back to London for four nights then Lisbon for six. Bummer. I have learned a valuable lesson: Don’t book the short flights on the same ticket as the long haul. I could have cancelled the short flight for a minimal amount and just booked another day - but because they’re linked, I’m stuck.

But! These are First World “problems” - which means, not really “problems” - keeping it in perspective! We will just be extra cautious in London.

Well, if it's any consolation, we're in a similar boat Iwan2go.

In an attempt to salvage our trip when we pulled the plug on German/Austria/Italy, last week we added a short flight into Porto and out of Lisbon, but our original long haul flight is still in/out of Munich. Because we didn't want to chance connecting to flights on different tickets, we kept our one night stay in Munich on arrival and our originally planned three nights in Munich on departure. Now, if Munich goes into lockdown, they'll be closing hotels, and if that happens we're screwed.

We looked into changing the short flight by a few days, but it's just not possible. We also looked into abandoning the Munich-Porto-Lisbon-Munich and then taking a train from Munich to another airport and flying to Portugal from there, but it's just not feasible.

I have to ask myself if all this work trying to salvage our trip is worth it or not. We're set to leave next Tuesday...unless things change between now and then, and they very well could.

Oh no, Mel, your boat is even more precarious than mine! 😩 I’m so sorry to hear that. I get the impression that the German government is taking strong steps to curb things, and that’s more than my recent impressions of the UK. Hopefully neither of us will see more of a hotel room than we’ve planned on… as you are, we are being careful and planning ahead. Fingers crossed. 🙏🏻

i SO look forward to hearing about your trip! Feeling optimistic! Wildest chance we’ve ever taken (…unless you count our Volcano Vacation to France in 2010, when, after reconfiguring flights and physically on the way, I turned to my husband and said, “I hope this was a good idea…”. He nearly beaned me). And that one turned out fine.

The new covid rules for Portugal announced today-
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news...portugal/63779

Thank you, Maribel, I was just reading about them.

Because we'll be flying into Lisbon from Madrid, it appears we'll now need a negative antigen test to board our Iberia flight, another hoop to add to our hoop-jumping list.
We don't plan to visit any nightclubs (which will be closed from Jan. 2-9) or bars or sports venues, therefore, we won't have to present a negative Covid-19 test.

We're very used to wearing our masks in enclosed spaces as we did during the month of September in Spain, as we still have an indoor mask mandate in our state.

What I don't know---whether our CDC vaccination cards, rather than the EU Covid-19 digital certificate, will be sufficient for access to our lodging, museums and restaurants. I believe that prior to today, Portugal had been recognizing valid third country vaccination certificates, such as our US paper certificate.
There have been multiple reports on the TA Portugal forum of the CDC card being sufficient for entry to hotels, restaurants, etc (prior to Dec. 1), but that doesn't necessarily mean this will continue as the greater restrictions are imposed.
I've sent an email to our 2 hotels to clarify.

Our Lisbon and Cascais hotels have just confirmed that they will accept our US Covid vaccination cards for our stays from December 6-January 4.