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Created by Melanie Taylor
Sat 12/06/10 (day 1)
Our Portugal Road Trip
When planning a holiday there are so many things that you need to think about, to ensure that you get the most from your destination. Is the climate at the time of year you are travelling right for you? What does the destination offer you in the way of sightseeing and attractions? How easy can you travel around? What is the overall cost of your holiday?
Luckily for us the internet can answer most of these questions, and with the help of peoples input and feedback we can all choose a holiday that is right for us! This is exactly what I did when planning my trip to Portugal; so here are my recommendations for you, I hope that you find them useful.
Portugal is not a huge country, from north to south you can probably drive it in around 6 hours, which is why we choose a self-drive holiday, or as I called it ‘our very first road trip’. At first the idea was a little daunting; driving in a foreign country. I have visions of us arguing by the side of the road because I had said take a left and he had took a right turning! To get this thought out of mind we booked a GPS system with our hire car , that way we could just both shout at the machine and not each other! The freedom of having your own transport is great. There is no waiting around at the airport to be picked up by the transfer coach; no being the first ones on and last ones off! We decided to book our car hire at Porto Airport, so upon arrival we just had to get to the car hire desk, fill in some paperwork, have a quick check around the car and off we went. Thankfully the GPS was already set to English, which was great as my basic Portuguese wasn’t at its best so there was no way I could have understand a machine! Porto is a lovely coastal city; you have fantastic historic attractions here and it’s also home to the famous Port wine. I would recommend 3 days in Porto and then head to Aveiro. Portugal does have a few toll roads, but if you take the highway 29 you can travel from Porto to Aveiro, escaping all tolls! Part of the city is made up of canals and bridges, a little like Venice, a quick trip on one of the painted boats, which are called moliceiros is a definite here! The city centre itself holds allot of history and plenty of sightseeing can be done here, but our favourite spot was down by the coast. You can try lots of different water sports, we had a go at surfing; not a glamorous sport at all! Next on our list was Coimbra, it took around 1 hour to get there from Aveiro and the drive took us away from the coast. The city is located along the Mondego River and is its university is one of the oldest in Europe. The city is simply beautiful, the architecture of the buildings and the city’s parks are breath-taking. We stopped in a charming hotel just on the city centre’s edge, it was run by a family and they did the best breakfast of our trip! For the next leg of our journey our drive was a little longer as we were heading for Lisbon. It took around 2 hours 20 minutes, and we were so glad that we got a car with air conditioning as travelling in the mid-day sun was hot! Upon arriving in Lisbon we parked up the car and the hotel and that was where it remained for our 2 day stay. The city centre is quite compact and the roads can get a little crazy, so we decided to tackle it on foot. Lisbon has a certain cosmopolitan feel to it, with the high end fashion shops; yet wander down a back street and you will find the more traditional shops. Onto the last leg of our journey! With the places we have so far stooped in we have enjoyed tradition and culture, which is why our last stop is all about relaxing and working on our tan. The Algarve is known for its dreamy beaches and fantastic weather, and within 3 hours we were with our car hire in I would say that for our first road trip was a complete success and I cannot wait to plan another one!
Faro , going from city dressing to shorts and flip flops. As we were catching a flight back home from faro Airport we chose to stay here for the remainder of our holiday. Our few days in Faro were your typical holiday, beach, sun, ocean and eating; what a great way to end our adventure through Portugal. We drove the car hire to Faro Airport , checked the car back in and boarded our flights.