Finally in Lisbon

Having arrived in Lisbon 21st December in the night we have just completed the first leg of our journey. 3 days of just driving, driving and …. Yes you are quite correct – driving. Normally the travel through Europe and its motorways is quite uneventful, I would even say dull. Not this time though! The original plan was to swiftly pass through UK, France and Spain into Portugal in just two days of some steady driving, racking up the motorway miles. That really didn’t go as we hoped. The drive through the UK, which usually is just a mere formality that takes around eight hours, proved a total nightmare that took….. fifteen hours!

UK

Delays, delays, delays… If not getting stuck in a queue due to simply bad weather combined with people going shopping on the last weekend before Christmas, than two hours spent waiting for the motorway to be reopened after an accident. Add the Eurostar train brake down due to the low temperatures and the Calais port that we were sailing to suspend operations for a few hours as it got snowed in and you have a recipe for a disaster.

France

One word – BEAUTIFUL!

Until we arrived in France I haven’t realised even realised how much I missed snow…

All the fields, trees (and roads…) were covered with a thick layer of this fluffy, cold amazing snowy carpet. Originally we were to take toll-free roads knowing that motorways are expansive, but because of delays in the UK and really treacherous conditions in France we had to take the (boring) toll motorways. 56 EUROS! We were robbed!!!

I suppose we really did not have a choice there - loose some cash and drive one day on safe and largely de-iced roads or spend four days driving with average speed 20 mph on beautiful but deadly dangerous smaller roads. If anyone will be travelling to French-Spanish border I would like to recommend a lovely coastal city there – Bayonne. The visit is really worth as this is a city that has it all: a great castle, medieval old town, a river and an amazing view of Pyrenees. And it’s on the coast of the Atlantic!

Spain

That was pretty uneventful – there were some nice views of Pyrenees and the roads finally got a bit more interesting being a bit more twisty with some Michael Schumacher-alike drivers, but that’s pretty much it… The landscapes became really featureless making the whole drive really dull.

Portugal

But then we got to Portugal! What a change – hills, bends, rain, fog! All that woke us up and kept us awake for the last few hundred kilometres. We arrived in Lisbon 21st of December at 11pm having completed 1800 miles.

Further updates from Portugal coming soon!