Country casa

Land, sea and air - getting information

Flights: A good source for prices is skyscanner. Type your home airport into the "From" box and OPO or LIS into the "To" box. When you enter a date in the "Depart" box it's worth clicking on the "Whole month" button towards the bottom. This will allow you to compare prices for departure and arrival over a whole month. It's possible to halve the price of a flight by changing your flight dates by a day or two.

Driving routes: Google maps Google maps will give you drive times, routes (with and without tolls) and details instructions. Click on the "Get directions" button and put the start point in the first box and "Serpins, Portugal" in the second box then click the "Get directions" button. The "Show options" line allows you to refine your route.

Car hire: we would strongly recommend economy car hire (we have not financial interest in this company). The advantage is the low prices and the £0 excess - check this is still the case before renting. Some car hire companies are now renting cars with an extremely high excess charge. This means you are liable for (up to) the first £2000 worth of any damage to the car. The cheap rental price is then converted to a high rental price when you buy - on collecting the car - extra insurance to cover this excess charge. You are not required to insure this excess with the car hire comapny and it's often worth talking to you own insurer in the UK to cover this risk.

Toll roads: Portugal has enthusiastically adopted tolls on motorways. Many of these motorways were developed to take traffic off the more dangerous roads running through villages and towns. Some of these tolls can be very high especially for local commuters using them several times per week. There is a strange mix of payment methods which means you can end up being funnelled into an electronic toll road (ie you can't just hand over cash) with no means to pay aside from waiting 2 days then going to a post office to hand over your money within 5 days if the system's managed to recognise you numberplate. Avoiding toll roads can be difficult as SatNavs and online route-planners have difficulty keeping up with the latest additions to the toll network. This has all worked towards pushing traffic off the safer motorways and back into the towns and side roads. Google "portuguese toll roads" for the whole sorry tale.

Flights to Portugal

There are flights to Lisbon and Porto airport from the UK by TAP, Easyjet, BA and many other airlines.

Porto: This airport is 151km from Serpins and 1 hour 40 minutes drive time (some toll roads) or 143km and 2 hours 25 minute drive time (no toll roads).

Lisbon: Lisbon airport is 225km from Serpins and 2 hours 13 minutes drive time (some toll roads) or 217km and 3 hours 20 minutes drive time (no toll roads).

Ferry and driving

The ferry route to Portugal is via France or Spain. There are numerous ferries from the south coast of the UK (Dover, Folkstone, Portsmouth, Newhaven, etc) to France. The main route from the UK to Spain is from Plymouth and Postsmouth to Santander or Portsmouth to Bilbao.

The Spanish ferry trip takes about 30 hours and can be a nice mini-cruise and a chance to see Spain's green coast. The French ferries are quicker, cheaper and more basic. Petrol costs (and mid-journey accomodation) tend to make the French route more expensive than flying and car hiring. The Spanish ferry is an expensive way to take a car to Iberia. Neither way is a cheap alternative to flying unless there are a number of people driving in the same vehicle. Both can be good methods if you want to see the sights of Spain and France as well as Portugal.