Road Trip Planning – Spain Portugal & Portimaõ April 2022

Along with the new ship comes a revised summer schedule, which has tilted the departure and arrival times in our favour. (Scroll down for the timetable)

Departures from Portsmouth to Santander or Bilbao are now late in the evening, and you get two nights onboard. The advantage for us is that we arrive in Spain bright and early on the second morning and can ride for a full day when we arrive.

Departures back to Portsmouth are now in the middle of the afternoon. So that early morning eyeball melting ride from the Picos into the rising sun is no longer necessary.

The ferry to and from Plymouth to Santander retains the more traditional timings.

However, as Carle has already pointed out that despite the new ship and advantageous timings, I’ll still be bouncing off the walls, wanting to get on with the ride.

Road Trip Planning

The first day is looking like 265 miles southwest across Spain to the town of Salamanca. After that, the EX-205 from Salamanca into Portugal appears to have all the right sort of curves.

There may be a few less invigorating bits, but a quick scan on Google maps suggests good tarmac and quiet roads.

A second night stop somewhere around Benavila or Avis gives us an excellent place to split off. The track-day junkies have a quick 200 miles to cover to the track at Portimao, giving them a day to set up ready for the weekend.

Meanwhile, the working stiffs have a road test to complete and a few days tracking east back into Spain, looping through the beautiful Andalusia region of Spain looks to be an excellent road test route.

Crossing back into Portugal isn’t as easy as you might think due to the Rio Guadiana.

Google searches and studying maps only came up with two bridges that cross the river near our route, the Guadiana International Bridge at the very southern end of Spain and the bridge on the HU-7400 to the west of Paymogo.

Always wanting the road less travelled, we are aiming for the bridge on the HU-7400.

A night stop around Mértola in Portugal will leave us with 100 miles to cover to get to Portimao for lunchtime Saturday and see how far through the tyres on the Suzuki GSXS-750 Roger has chewed.

Heading North

Studying the maps and looking for the best route to take back to Bilbao is confusing. There are so many weaving roads to choose from that every time I think I’ve found the sort of road that will make us smile; I spot another road I would like to ride and start adjusting the route.

Eventually, thanks to Facebook, a Fire Fighter in Faro kindly pointed me towards Route N2, a Portuguese road trip in the vein of the NC500 or Route 66.

Once the principal north to south route through Portugal, the N2 runs from Chaves in the north, near the border with Spain, 738Kms south to Faro, and just to be different, we’ll be riding it south to north.

There will always be another inviting road to follow, but the N2 should give us an equal blend of twisting roads and places to enjoy the journey.

Roll on April 2022. What could possibly go wrong?