Match 6 -- Wales v. Portugal

Saturday, 16 September 2023

My sixth match (and the twelfth of the tournament) was Wales v. Portugal in Nice.

Due to a significant train delay (details in the Day 10 post), the tram dropped me off after the first half had ended. My new friend, Justin, and I ran from the tram stop to the stadium. On the bright side, there was no line at the ticket gate. 🙂 I got to my seat just in time to see the second-half kickoff.

That all means that I missed the national anthems. The Wales anthem is one of my favorites. I don't know it in the Welsh, but I can "sing along" with English words that almost match phonetically.

Good seats once again. Right on the end of the try zone. 

The view from my seats.

Wales won, 28-8. Portugal was more competitive than most people expected.

There was a mess at the tram station leaving the stadium. It looked like it might take a long time to get on a tram, and there was no orderly line, so it was a lot of pushing and jostling. A bunch of us walked one stop upstream -- we had already seen some trams arrive mostly full at the stadium stop -- to see if the lines were shorter, or if they were letting people get on every other tram there, or some other blended approach. When we arrived, we were told that the station was closed. We walked back to the station by the stadium and got back at the end of the line. Overall it took about two hours to get to the hotel after the match ended. The Nice metro people should ask the Lille people for some pointers.

...doug