Husdband has broken his leg, and though we have flights, does not have a 'fit to fly' letter as medical permisson has been refused.
Can anyone suggest the best route - using ferry part way?
So grateful - due to come on 21st July.
Dawn

Click Here.

This site has an excellent routeplanner & booking engine, if you want to organise everything in one place:

http://www.drive-alive.co.uk/

We have done the run to and from Santander and Bilbao, and back, twice in the last 2 years.

The distance is about 650 miles, which if you have a fast comfortable car, you can do in one day, about 9 hours drive. using the "Tom-Tom" motorway based route, which takes you past Vallilodad and Salamanca, then west along the Madrid / Lisbon motorway, where you will hit the A2 motorway straight down from just below Lisbon, to the Algarve.

The Spanish motorways are toll-free, good quality, and you dont have to worry about speedlimits, except where they tell you....usually going around the big centres. The Portuguese motorways have tolls on them.
From memory, the toll from just after the Portuguese border, to the end of the A2, is about 24 euros.

One tip.
Spanish petrol is far cheaper than Portuguese. There is a filling station about 5 km from the border. Fill up there!

We left Santander at 12, mid day, and were sat in A Gale restaurant having our first sip of Planalto, just after 9 that evening.

The 2nd....far more civilised and relaxing method, is to burn the first 200 kms down from Santander/Bilbao, then when when you get into the Extramadura, stop off in one of the lovely walled Spanish hilltop towns like Trujillio, or Avila....beautiful atmospheric medieval walled cities....pure El Cid, and stay in an old monestary or palace, dating back 600 years or so....AND they are not horrendously expensive.....certainly not as expensive as a city centre hotel....and the local food.....

If you want something larger, try Cacres, still with an old walled centre, but also the regional city of the Extramadura.

some people will advise you to stay in one of the cities en route....WHY??? That's like stopping off in Birmingham instead of the Cotswolds!!!

This will give you a taste of the real, old Spain....very few modern concessions to modern tourism.

The trip down to this area will take about 4 hours from the northern Spanish coast, and it will give you time to divert through the Extramadura national park as you get closer to Trujillo and Cacres.

See off the major milage.....then set your sat Nav to take you across country the last 50 km to your overnight destination......well worth the effort.
Like wise, the run down to the Algarve, will take you 4 or 5 hours the next day.
Draw a line on your map, so you do the straight line to Carvoeiro, ignore the motorways, which are actually a huge dogsleg, and enjoy the countryside of this beautiful area....and you dont get the stress of a motorway.

Doing it that way....you have a holiday, before your holiday.

Enjoy your journey. We certainly did

dawnunitt wrote:Husdband has broken his leg, and though we have flights, does not have a 'fit to fly' letter as medical permisson has been refused.
Can anyone suggest the best route - using ferry part way?
So grateful - due to come on 21st July.
Dawn

I flew back to UK wth a broken ankle - no problems on Ryanair!! - Couldnt even ring them the day before as I did on the last night. Arrived at Faro and went to the check in although we had hand luggage. They provided a chair and gave us an emergency exit so I could stretch the leg out - chair waiting at b'ham and of course we by-passed the passport queue chaos - porter took us straight to the car park bus. Wonderful

maccasa wrote:

dawnunitt wrote:Husdband has broken his leg, and though we have flights, does not have a 'fit to fly' letter as medical permisson has been refused.
Can anyone suggest the best route - using ferry part way?
So grateful - due to come on 21st July.
Dawn

I flew back to UK wth a broken ankle - no problems on Ryanair!! - Couldnt even ring them the day before as I did on the last night. Arrived at Faro and went to the check in although we had hand luggage. They provided a chair and gave us an emergency exit so I could stretch the leg out - chair waiting at b'ham and of course we by-passed the passport queue chaos - porter took us straight to the car park bus. Wonderful

Ryanair were out of order giving you the emergency exit seat, should there have been an emergency you could have impaired the routine emergency procedure.
No disrespect to you maccasa but this is just another reason I will not fly Ryan air, they are far too lax in aircraft safety.

Oops sorry...2 posts

We've driven out from Uk a few times..and this time will be no exception. We will book on the Euro tunnel and take the route from Bordeaux and drive down to Algarve via Le Mans..and stay overnight at the Green Seven motel...
Then hopefully drive through the Pyrenees and possibly stay at the 'Piconde del Conde'.....then take the route down from the upper part of Portugal and drive back to our old home Lagoa, where we hope to meet up with some old friends

Ellie wrote:We've driven out from Uk a few times..and this time will be no exception....

So when are you going then?

Ellie wrote:We've driven out from Uk a few times..and this time will be no exception. We will book on the Euro tunnel and take the route from Bordeaux and drive down to Algarve via Le Mans..and stay overnight at the Green Seven motel...
Then hopefully drive through the Pyrenees and possibly stay at the 'Piconde del Conde'.....then take the route down from the upper part of Portugal and drive back to our old home Lagoa, where we hope to meet up with some old friends

Money saving tip for if you ever do that long drive......

If you go in at the top of Portugal, the road tolls will cost you about £50, and petrol is very expensive compared to Spain.
Stay in Spain as far south as you can, you'll save on tolls and fuel.

We do the trip regularly and have tried many routes. Best website we have found is viamichelin.com for maps, directions and recommended hotels. On either Michelin or Tom Tom if you set options "prefer motorways" but "avoid tolls" both take you from Bilbao to Santander thence Palencia (try Hotel Palacio Congresso, Clara Campoamor 13, Tel 979 100 761 or hotelpalaciocongresos.com - brand new tourist hotel, underground carpark (2.4m clearance just) excellent english spoken and near bars, restaurants etc. very reasonable) and on to Valadolid - Salamanca - Caceres - Merida - Sevilla - Huelva (Fuel at Lepe services) - Faro - Lagoa - Carvoeiro. It is 659 miles from Santander, now dual carriageway all the way, and via michelin can suggest hotels en route. Takes us 10 - 12 hours depending on stops from Bilbao, hour and a half less from Santander.
Have also driven through France. Motorways cheaper but fuel more expensive, long flog, so we find Santander/Bilbao ferry best bet and not much to choose on cost, with hotels, fuel etc. Best of luck!