NORTH PORTUGAL – PORTO

We have just three nights before we fly to make Tantra massage work in Malta for a couple of weeks. We crossed the Minho River and entered Portugal by the “north door”.

I was expecting to see somewhere to register vehicle and credit card for the recently introduced toll road system, as we see when entering into the Algarve from Spain, but there was nothing. I am not a fan of taking toll roads when there are reasonable alternatives and knowing the Algarve I have avoided them. Of course there are some roads where paying a toll can save fuel costs. In Spain the camper is Class 1, as a car, but in Portugal (Italy too) it is in Class 2 and we can pay almost double.

I have struggled for a couple of week s to update our Tom Tom gps with latest road maps, as the 2012 version I have is not aware of the Portugese toll roads, so keeps trying to send me onto them. One error will cost me a large fine. The Tom Tom system has guided me through many countries, with a little necessary human intuition from me. Their software designers have created a system making each country separate from the next. So being English, and having bought the gps in England, I can’t upgrade the maps unless I use a credit card registered there which I don’t have. My card has a Maltese address and they don’t recognise Malta as a country. After many long discussions with their help line, they sent a link to pay in Poland as Anita has a card registered there. To cut a long story short we finally found a way round the problem, but for anyone spread over more than one country the system just does not work. More calls, from them finally guided me through the process of uploading the new maps it had taken two weeks and much stress to buy.

As we drove south on the A28 over mountains and down towards Viano do Costelo I could see the toll warning so we pulled off onto the old road, as without registration, I would be driving into a fine as most of these roads don’t have toll booths, just number plate recognition and automated card charging.

We slowly continued until we found our destination, a camp site 30 km north of Porto, when we serviced and rested over two nights. It was necessary. The last days were particularly stressful  thanks to the need to organise repair of the vehicle, update TomTom, family discussions about care of Anita’s mother etc.

On Saturday we arrived in Porto at a parking place by the river. 

We walked to the historic centre of this second City of Portugal famous for Port wine. The familiar names were everywhere, Sandemans, Dow, Taylors etc. Read more about Port wine and the Douro Valley at www.cellartours.com/blog/portugal/10-top-port-wines.

The steep sided slopes of the river make an attractive sight, painted buildings, bridges and water traffic (mostly touristic) and historic buildings.

It was late afternoon on Saturday, the traffic hardly moved, and the city was full of tourists. We stopped in a back street café for a drink and snack before heading to a pre-booked off airport parking, where we could sleep for the night and leave the vehicle while we go to Malta.