TJ walking out of Tirana’s Airport
Bittersweet is our departure from Coração d’Ouro. named after a Portuguese Telenovela, meaning Heart of Gold.
AirBnb owner Lianne is ready at 8am to take us to Tábua bus station. We almost spent a month with her. Got a great tan going and the daily swimming in the pool was definitely a health kick for Han. We also said a fond goodbye to Finata Bakery owner Anne and bought four of her delicious sweets for the road
The bus Rede Espressos was right on time at 9am to take us to Coimbra and from there we went the 112 km to Porto’s Campanhas Busstation in less than 90 minutes. From there we called an Über to take us to Park Hotel across from Porto Airport. Early check in an 18°C upgraded room, while outside temperatures were reaching 40°, was a welcome gesture even though their dinner was a complete miss.
Entering the Schengen Shuffle at 4:15 the next morning was our wake up call, but we felt okay as we had slept the five or six previous hours pretty good. RyanAir was departing at 7:10 that morning so we had to get there in time, considering the new Schengen Accord limits and guidelines. Of course we did not have the new guidelines to consider on this flight as it took us inside Schengen from Porto to Milano-Bergamo in Italy. The fun would start from Bergamo to Tirana, Albania which is a non Schengen destination. Of course Han does not have to worry about overstaying his welcome since he is still a European citizen with a European Passport that is valid until 2035. It’s TJ who has to worry about this until we have filed the necessary paperwork in Portugal upon our return in the Euro/Schengen zone in October.
Milano-Bergamo: What once used to be a small military airport
I’m starting to write this at the Bergamo Airport and cannot get away from thinking that the last time I was in this city, it did not even have an airport. It was just the second big city after Merano, when we came over the Alps Mountains for an Adriatic or Tyrrhenian Sea beach vacation in the 1960s or 70s.
Personally I think the advent of Ryanair(1985) primarily and followed by other successful discount airlines in Europe have caused the growth of air traffic throughout the European continent. As a result places like Bergamo, Weeze/Düsseldorf, Emmingen, Banja Luka, Girona/Spain and others have now huge airports with millions of travelers going through every years and dozens of languages to be heard, in this place where 60 years ago only Italian was heard.
A little bit on the Schengen Treaty’s history. It all came together in 1985 when France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg signed an agreement to abolish borders and controls between them. Spain and Portugal joined a bit later and today 29 European countries have joined. Of course as so often where it concerns bureaucrats with nothing much else on their hands, they had to design and write rules for citizens and non-citizens of these countries, how long they would be permitted to be in one of the Schengen countries and 90 days seemed to be an acceptable number for most of them. So these days a non-schengen citizen can stay a total of 90 days in the Schengen zone. Without special visas or other arrangements, overstaying this duration makes them illegal. To make this real special and complicated, these 90 days have to be counted backward, as in no more than 90 days during the last 180 days.
The next month we stay in Tirana, Albania
Well for people that cross borders often, there is a calculator invented to keep you straight. Suggestion is to use it wise and often as these days the world has turned digital, which means that since April 10, 2026 this 90 day requirement has been coupled to the Entry/Exit System (EES), which digitally controls your moves with fingerprints and facial photographing whenever you cross a border. A questionable future is here as more countries have applied to become member of the system. Striking complications turn up for countries like Ireland, and the UK, especially since England left the EU and Ireland (except Northern Ireland is. But also Cyprus, Albania, Montenegro or Bosnia are Schengen escape options for non-EU citizens to stay in Europe for longer than 90 days.
Be smart and use the calculator!
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