Miscellaneous information - Portugal

This section contains information on:

Travel to Portugal and getting around once you're there
Passport and visa requirements
Geography and time zone
Weather
Electricity

Getting there and around

Getting there

For most of us, this is reasonably easy. Lisbon, Faro and Porto are the airports you’ll use. All these airports are under 10 miles from the city centres and you’ll find all the usual facilities, including car rental, taxis, etc.

Departure Tax: None.

TAP Air Portugal is the country’s own national airline but search the internet and you’ll find plenty of options – including many airlines with both direct and indirect flights… including, of course, some of the budget airlines.

For direct flights, the journey time from the UK (London Airports) is about 3 hours and it’s a similar journey time from Ireland (Shannon, Dublin, Cork).

By ship, you can land at Portimão, Porto or Lisbon and by rail you can go via Eurostar to Lisbon. Or… take the ferry to northern Spain – avoiding the long drive through France, if you’d prefer - and then drive on down from, say Bilbao in Spain. It’s about 11 hours to drive right down south to Faro.

Getting around

Fly around the country from Lisbon, Faro, Madeira, Porto Santo, Porto and the Azores.

There’s an extensive regional, inter-regional and local train network – with some links including express trains, too. Check all your options because there are many. Research too, Inter-Rail One Country Passes, Intra Rail Cards, multi-day Tourist Tickets and various others which offer younger people and children discounted travel.

By road

International Driving Permits or foreign driving licences are perfectly OK but if you drive a van you’ll also need a “Carnet de Passage”.

Your vehicle must have at least Third Party insurance.

In addition, you must be able to produce on-demand the following (if you want to avoid an on-the-spot fine, that is) - official documentation with a photo (passport for example), insurance documents, log book or car rental contract.

The Portuguese drive on the right (and they sincerely hope you will, too!).

To hire a car you need to be twenty one to twenty five (depends on the rental company) – otherwise the minimum car driving age is eighteen.

Many of the driving rules you’ll be familiar with, I’m sure. Here’s a summary of the key points:

Children should not travel in front seats
Seat belts have to be used
Use dipped headlights in well lit areas and park with side lights left on in badly lit locations
You may not carry cans of fuel inside your car
Speed limits are: Motorways 120kph (74 mph), 90 kph (55mph) outside built-up areas and 50kph (31 mph) in built-up areas. Cars towing are restricted to 70kph (43mph) on open roads and 100kph (62mph) on motorways. Drivers who have held a licence for less than one year must not exceed 90kph (55mph). There is also a minimum speed of 40kph (24mph) enforced on motorways
Warning triangles are compulsory
Traffic signs are international
Cars can be imported for up to six months

Roads vary of course. The main roads and motorways have good quality road surfaces; it’s only if you decide to venture out deep “into the sticks” that you might begin to describe them as “adequate”.

Portuguese roads can be three lanes wide with the middle lane being used for overtaking… from either direction. Take care!

Road tolls

Motorways charge tolls according to vehicle type and distance travelled. The word for toll is “portagem". You’ll find tolls on these sections of road:

A1 Lisboa to Santarem
A1 Santarem to Fatima
A1 Fatima to Coimbra
A1 Coimbra to Aveiro
A1 Aveiro to Porto
A2 Lisboa to Marateca
A3 Porto to Braga
A4 Porto to Amarante
A5 Lisboa to Cascais
A6 Marateca to Montemor-o-Novo
A8 Lisboa to Torres Vedras

Road travel continued

Some filling stations are open all day, every day but others may only open from 07:00 to about 20:00… or perhaps to midnight.

You can reach every town and village by road and there are bus and coach services linking most locations.

Car hire is available from the well-known franchises and also local providers in main towns and airports, both with or without driver.

Lisbon and Porto both have an extensive underground system, plus buses and trams.

Taxis are readily available in cities, airports and resort areas. They expect you to tip – about 10%.

Passports and Visas

For all except EU nationals, passports are needed. The UK is an exception – passports are required. Citizens of Malta, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, may use their valid National ID cards.

If you are an EU citizen you don’t need a visa. No visas are required for citizens of the US and Canada, Australia or Japan.

Nation by nation, the required length of the remaining validity of your passport varies: it might be up to six months. We recommend you check either with your own government agency or perhaps better, the Portuguese consular offices.

Note: Portugal is a signatory to the 1995 Schengen Agreement.

NB Passport and visa requirements are liable to change at short notice. You are advised to check your own entry requirements with your embassy or consulate.

Geography

The Portuguese mainland is situated on the Iberian Peninsula with land borders on its eastern-most and northern extremities… which adjoin Spain.

The western/southern border – nearly 1,800 km long – is the Atlantic Ocean. Madeira and The Azores are the two islands controlled by Portugal – two key strategic locations with reference to the western sea approaches of the Strait of Gibraltar. Its land territory covers not far short of 92,000 square kilometres.

The country is divided in two by its largest river – the Tagus (or Tejo in Portuguese). The Tagus starts its life miles away up in the Aragon region of Spain. South of the river, there are rolling plains. To the north, the landscape tends to be mountainous in the interior with plateaus which have allowed the development of fertile agricultural zones.

As you might expect, the south tends to be drier and warmer than the north although sunny days are not at all uncommon in winter time and are more or less guaranteed the rest of the year. In winter, average temperatures in the coastal areas remain in the 8/11° C range. Spring, summer and autumn the high temperatures are going to be in the high twenties to mid thirty degree Celsius range… very comfortable without being sweltering. Overall, Portugal is one of the warmest European countries although in the mountainous northern regions in winter you may see snow.

Time is GMT plus one hour with daylight saving time adjustments in March and October.

Weather

A gradual warming-up occurs during the spring with average daytime high temperatures as high as 22° C (72° F) by May. You can expect about ten hours of sunshine per day on average.

Daytime summer maximum temperatures will reach 25° C (78° F) thanks to the refreshing sea breezes. Eleven to twelve hours of sunshine can be expected.

As in other regions, September and the first part of October are essentially an extension of summer. Daytime average maximum temperature can still reach 26° C (79° F), but will have dropped to around 17° C (63° F) by November. Daily sunshine hours fall back from about 9 hours in September to about 5 or 6 hours in November.

During the winter time, Portugal has a comparable temperature pattern to Spanish coastal towns. Average daytime high temperatures will be approximately 16° C (61° F), with an average of around five to six hours of sunshine per day… similar temperatures as you’ll find at the other end of the Med, in Cyprus for example.

Electricity

220 volts AC, 50Hz. You may also find 110 volts in some areas and 230 DC in parts of the south. Standard, continental-style 2 pin plugs are in use.