Saturday 5 November 2016

Renovation project - Toll roads in Portugal (important information)

Renovation project - Toll roads in Portugal (important information)

We have decided to stick to the toll roads all the way to Lisbon, which is our next stop. The hotel is in the sat nav and we are off. As we approach the border we follow the sat nav and for some reason it takes us via a truck stop area, never mind, it isn’t always the best sat nav, but now I am gutted as we are in Portugal and I missed the signs.
We pass some strange signs on the motorway, the funniest being ‘foreigners’ John points out we are not foreigners, we are Europeans, mmm, I’m not too sure.
As we drive we see the first sign for an electronic toll. We then drive though the electronic toll and do not pay. This is not a good start to out Portuguese leg of the trip. We then pass another electronic toll. And do not pay again.
These tolls are cameras over the motorway, there is nowhere to stop.
We pull off on the next service station and discuss what we can do; there is nowhere to register for the tolls. I personally think we should continue to Lisbon and ask the hotel for advice, but John wants to go back, we both agree that we must have missed the information when we missed the border.
We turn around at the service station and drive the 50 kilometres back to Spain, this time ignoring the sat nav.
We drive through the border control, turn around and drive straight back into Portugal (I am sure we are not the only ones to do this) and I do get to see the Porturgal sign this time

Portugal
As we drive we see the sign for foreigners again, and this time we realise this is where you purchase your electronic toll card.
Toll roads in Portugal

Toll roads in Portugal

Toll roads in Portugal
We pull in to what appears to be a small service station and the machines are right there. It is extremely simple and the instructions are in more than one language.

Toll roads in Portugal

Toll roads in Portugal

Toll roads in Portugal
It is very important to keep the receipt you are given.

But now we are all registered and it is once again in to Portugal and on to Lisbon.
It is some weeks before we sort out our 4 missed payments, which is reasonably easy as it can be done on line.
Top Tips

  • You must register your car for the electronic tolls
  • There are various ways of registering with different tickets depending on your length of stay
  • If you do miss it, you can pay on line, but there are charges. Here is the link http://www.portugaltolls.com/

6 comments:

  1. I am glad you got this sorted out, no jail time, ha ha. One thing I don't like about all those toll cameras is that the government has a record of where you are at what time on what day. TMI, too much information, in my opinion.

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  2. You can also pay for tolls at any of the petrol stations. Just buy a voucher, text your reg to the number on the back. It should flash up the amount as you pass each toll so you know how much you have used - and on the same basis, how much you have left

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  3. Very helpful tips. Hope you have a fabulous trip.

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  4. thanks everybody, there are may tolls in this area but not expensive. Wish we had known we could get them via a text and voucher, it would've saved a 100 km round trip ;)

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  5. Very helpful post of your trip to Portugal. Thank you for taking the time to let other travelers know how this works as we are going there this year! Good travels.

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