Portugal trip 2022 - A wrap up

 Monday 03/10/22

As usual, I'm just doing a wrap up of the trip as a record for ourselves as well as information for anyone who is interested.

We loved out time in the Portuguese summer so much last year that, when we were invited back to look after the five horses and rural property again this year, we jumped at the opportunity.  We were able to get the dates to work with our Brexit-shuffle and spent 80 days in Spain, Portugal and France, 10 days shorter than our allowed 90 days - because we want to be back in the EU early in January so couldn't stay beyond 1 October.

We took the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Santander on the way down and returned via Caen to Portsmouth.  Our preferred crossing is definitely still Eurotunnel but in this case it made more sense to cut out some of the driving and travel by sea.

Unexpected summery afternoon at Charford
In spite of the sunshine, we can already feel our tans fading away!

We drove a total of 3,870km (2,418 miles) and Bokkie consumed around 424 litres of diesel (she also took a tankful of petrol and needed a stomach-pump) at a cost of £630.  We stayed 16 nights on campsites at a cost of £260 and spent around £644 on groceries.

We did a lot of planned maintenance on Bokkie while on the sit (and some unplanned) and are hugely relieved that we seem to have beaten the intermittent limping fault, she performed fantastically on the way back.  I will still do a permanent fix by replacing all six cables just to make sure don't have a recurrence any time soon as it makes for much more relaxed driving when she behaves herself.

We've got five winter house-sits lined up between now and New Year, and then we will head off to Brittany again.  We're applying for long term French visas which, if granted, will give us greater freedom to remain in the EU for a year and therefore expand our travel options in Europe.