Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Driving in Portugal
  • priceyboy
    Free Member

    Me and Mrs Priceyboy are off to Portugal in the summer. We fly into Porto and then have a hour and a half journey to the villa.
    Anything I need to know? or any experiences (good/bad) regarding driving in Portugal would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    They toot and gesture a bit if you make an error or get in their way, but they don’t really mind and its nothing personal, unlike the self-righteous tossers we find here.

    welshfarmer
    Full Member

    Had a great holiday once. We drove into Portugal at top right corner and finished at Cape Verde (bottom left). Did almost all of it on unsurfaced tracks, camping wild. Fantastically varied countryside with everything from snow to sand dunes en-route. General standard of driving was OK but we were in pretty sparsely inhabited parts most of the time. People there were very friendly and generous.

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    alpin
    Free Member

    My folks have a place in the Algarve. Driving is generally OK and has improved massively in the last 15 years.

    Pretty country with friendly people.

    @Welshfarmer…. Did you have a 4×4? Thinking of taking the van to Portugal next year and want to stay away from civilisation as much as possible. Did you have any trouble with wild camping?

    welshfarmer
    Full Member

    We did have 4x4s but to be honest there was nothing there I wouldn’t take a good small van along (unless perhaps if the weather turned nasty). Wherever we went we met local farmers in their small kangoos and berlingo type vans. We chose our sites pretty carefully and never had a problem wild camping and we were a group of 5 or 6 trucks.

    alpin
    Free Member

    Cool. Have done some green laning in Germany with our van (lwb t5) with out any trouble.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/touring_tips/portugal.pdf
    The lights in Tunnels thing is the same in Spain and the local police seem to get their quota in by heading to the nearest tunnel to the airport…

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Driving is fine. Nothing particularly special, cities are smaller and roads quieter so not as mad as Spain or Italy.

    samunkim
    Free Member

    Main thing is to be aware of
    someone flashing their lights is meant as a warning NOT an invitation to pull-out.

    batfink
    Free Member

    I’ve driven from Porto down to Lisbon. It’s pretty easy to be honest – outside of the cities the roads were quiet,especially the toll roads which are empty and cheap.

    Take a satnav and you’ll be fine

    crankboy
    Free Member

    As above all very easy but some left turns require a right turn on to a feeder first . so instead of turning left from the traffic lane you go right then cross the traffic as if entering from a t junction. Confusing till you realise. Navfree saved us in small medieval villages and cities which can be confusing mazes of narrow streets.

    Milkie
    Free Member

    Depending where you go, be careful of potholes, or more to the point, oncoming traffic on your side of the road because of a pot hole on their side. This can include blind corners. 😉

    Apart from that, the standard seems to be on par with France 15 years ago. eg. overtaking on a single carriage way both ways at same time (4 a breast). Standards seem to get better the further out of tourist areas, probably because they are a lot of ex-pats outside the tourist areas! 😆

    geoffj
    Full Member

    This probably won’t affect you, but there is a toll road stretch between Faro and Lagos which has no pay booths. Hire car companies will offer you a transponder and the option of paying the fees with them, which they pass on. If you don’t do this, I think you have to pay at a post office or similar within a certain time period or you get a fine. There may be similar stretches up north, if you’re hiring a car they should tell you.

    priceyboy
    Free Member

    Once again the STW posse comes to the rescue.

    Thank you all very much for your input.

    kimbers
    Full Member

    yeah we had the hire car transponder thingy when we drove from porto to a wedding a bit inland last summer

    driving was fine

    its a lovely place,

    ps
    wish id been allowed to take the bike!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

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