kanadajin

I am planning a return trip to Spain in mid-March 2010 and thought I would try to fit in a few days in Portugal to be spent in Lisbon and surrounding area, given this opportunity for a first albeit brief foray into Portugal for us. However, I am running into logistical problems with regards to transportation options between Lisbon and southern Spain (Andalucia or Estremadura). My initial itinerary thoughts were to fly into Lisbon for a few days, then cross over to southern Spain where we long to return, and then "AVE-it" back up to Madrid for our eventual return flight ("open jaw" air ticket). I am trying to avoid going to Andalucia through Madrid upon leaving Lisbon, as it seems awfully counter-productive.

Transportation options envisaged so far:
1- Rent a car upon leaving Lisbon with return in Sevilla - Problem: sky-high international drop-off fees !
2- Use public transportation (bus or rail) from Lisbon to Sevilla or Malaga or ??? - Problem: poor or non-existent links, involving long journey time and transfers (from what I can tell), etc.
3- Fly one-way from Lisbon to Sevilla (for example) - a reluctant option (I love seeing scenery from the ground when in new areas), and appears to be quite costly (TAP, Iberia, and a few others I looked into).
4 - Go to southern Spain first, rent a car there and eventually drive to Lisbon, park car for a few days and then drive back to Spain for drop-off - Problem: car would be parked for 4 or 5 days in Lisbon, incurring rental charges and parking fees, seems rather wasteful and possibly rather expensive.

I therefore thought I would post my dilemna on this forum. If things are indeed this complicated, perhaps I should be re-thinking this idea of going to Portugal, or the sequence of the itinerary, but we would indeed want to finish the trip in Madrid in any case.

I wonder if any thoughts could be offered from someone who would have faced a similar dilemna in the past.

kanadajin

Palenque

- Use public transportation (bus or rail) from Lisbon to Sevilla or Malaga or ??? - Problem: poor or non-existent links, involving long journey time and transfers (from what I can tell), etc.>

I have done it a few times by public transport and yes a long journey - the best bet is the daily bus from Faro to Seville any other option involves taking slow trains to the frontier, a ferry across then a bus to Huelva for a train to Seville

but the Faro to Seville bus - morning and afternoon service most days and takes about four hours (you lose an hour on the clock when crossing to Spain i believe)

EVA bus Faro +351 289 899 700/1

there is good train service Lisbon to Faro - ideally you would break your journey on the Algarve - I stayed once in Tavira, not far from the Spanish border and served by these buses i think - one of the few Algarve towns i've seen with old-world flare (and also great beaches a short boat ride from town)

Palenque

According to DAMAS bus company (biggest in Huelva province) the bus for Seville leaves (approx.) from FARO bus station at 09.20 and 16.35 every week day. ...
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...Andalusia.html -

kanadajin

Palenque, thanks for chiming in.

Yours are interesting comments indeed. I was completely unaware of the Faro to Sevilla bus route- I'll look more into that and appreciate the weblink. It may in fact be the best option, all things considered. While I had not really the intention to go to the Algarve (I seem to have an aversion to over-developed, touristy areas), I did hear good things about Tavira in the past, so I suppose a stopover there could be an option as well. Hmmmm, food for thought ...

It is interesting that in Portugal, it seeems so much easier to travel in the north-south axis than the east-west one. It makes me wonder if there would be some historical reasons for this - perhaps there was at one time a concerted effort to limit exchanges across the border with Spain, instead relying on the sea ?!?

I'll see where things go from here, and since you seem to know your way around, I hope you won't mind if I come back with further inquiries.

Thanks again
kanadajin

lobo_mau

Another option, wait for 1012 (Insh'Allah) to have the TGV up and running.
Serious note (as serious as it can be). As I think Palenque suggested to take the Lisbon / Algarve train (final stop as east as possible) train and a bus to complete the journey by train. I second that option. I don't know if the Alfa pendular (tilting train) goes all the way to the border, but some regional trains would do. If you are in Vila Real de Santo António, the taxi drivers take the service to the neighbouring city of Ayamonte, which is just the other side of Guadiana river. From there, you have much more options to move into Southern Spain.
The bus route Lisbon/Faro is a uninteresting motorway landscape, while the train route is much more scenic.
Have fun / enjoy my country

lobo_mau

there is one "by train" too much. Sorry for that

Palenque

and another option - take the overnight train Lisbon to Madrid and then hop the AVE for a few-hour journey to Seville from Madrid. Circuitous but saves a hotel and you travel thru mainly desert-like scenery at night.

GeoffHamer

The Faro-Sevilla bus is run jointly by EVA (www.eva-bus.com) and Damas (www.damas-sa.es). Note that Sevilla is "Sevilha" in Portuguese and that there is an hour's time difference between the two countries. Damas run more frequent services from Ayamonte to Sevilla. There are ferries from Vila Real to Ayamonte or it's a short taxi ride via the nearby bridge.

Palenque

the bus does indeed take the bridge and not the ferry - you can take all day going by train-ferry-bus-train as i have done or in 4 hours all the way by bus. Yet i thought taking the train to the ferry was quaint - crossing the boundary river by boat (ferries seem to go all the time) and then walking thru Ayamonte to the bus station (at that time in the old train station - tracks were pulled up years ago and the bus follows the old rail line to Huelva where you can transfer to trains or take frequent buses - i had a railpass so i went as much as possible by train = plus i'm a rail nut and not much a bus fan.

And there was and perhaps still is a dumpy overnight train Lisbon to S A Real - the last Portugeuse station right near the ferry to Spain but i believe, if running still, it only has regular seats and no sleeping accomodations like most overnight trains.

kanadajin

Muchas gracias a todos por sus sugerencias y comentarios.

lobo_mau I am presuming that you are portuguese (Have fun / enjoy my country) !

These are all excellent comments. I am honestly not sure I would be up for transfers from Alfa to regional trains to get to the border and all, so I would probably stick with the bus ride on the freeway as things would be simpler and likely faster. Interesting to note from GeoffHamer that the run Ayamonte-Sevilla is more frequent, though. Also I was not sure if there was a time difference between the 2 countries, but now I know!

Overnight trains (or buses or planes) are not an option for me as I cannot sleep at all aboard such - meaning any hotel savings also translate into a pretty-well-lost day afterwards for me lol !

With all this very helpful info, it looks as if I now have a little more homework to do.

(BTW I am fluent in spanish, so I do not expect to run into large difficulties in Portugal given the similarity)

Salud !

HappyTrvlr

Re: Spanish/Portugese We understand and can speak some Spanish. We could fiure out the Portugese signage and menus, but as far the spoken language...no.The pronounciation is so differentwith the SH included..plus we were told it wasn't a good idea to speak Spanish in Portugal.

thursdaysd

"perhaps there was at one time a concerted effort to limit exchanges across the border with Spain" - you might want to check out a little history. There is a great deal of bad blood between these two countries! Hence: "we were told it wasn't a good idea to speak Spanish in Portugal."

lobo_mau

Things are not that bad. No activity has been reported in the border during the last 200 years. The last time the Portuguese and "nuestros hermanos" engaged in a battle field were fighting side by side (and the brits btw) against the French imperial army (beginning of 19th century).
One of the most fortunate ideas in human history was the signing off the Tordesilhas treaty ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas ) between Portugal and Spain under the blessing of Pope Alexander 6th, dividing the world between the 2 countries. This idea apparently naif or megalomaniac assured a 5 centuries peace period between both countries, and is the reason why Brazil speaks Portuguese and Philippines speak Spanish.
Believe it or not the historical rivals of the Portuguese were the Dutch (with the world divided in 2 there were no room for emerging maritime powers).

Don't believe that "it isn't a good idea to speak Spanish in Portugal", however learning some "formules of politess" in Portuguese is a good policy.

The previous said, it has to be noted that "de Espanha nem bom vento nem bom casamento" (from Spain, neither a good wind nor a good mariage) - with "mariage" meaning any kind of link or association.

lobo_mau

"formules de politesse" or "politeness formulas", pick up one. Sleeping and posting in Fodors is like drinking and driving, potencially hazardous activities when performed at the same time.

Palenque

lobo - what is your take on whether Spanish and Portugeuse are similar - i think not IME but some Spaniards claim they can understand Portugeuse - can you understand Spanish?

curious.

lobo_mau

All romance languages are similar since they share one common root (Latin). The same applies to French, Italian, Catalan and so on.
Your question has not a single answer, since there are several nations in Spain. The situation is not the same when you refer to Galicia, Castilla or Cataluña (sp?) or the Basque country. These areas are very different from each other from a linguistic and cultural points of view and their openness and acceptance to the other is also different.
The biggest situation of linguistic closeness happens between Portuguese and Spanish Galicia. The Galician members of European Parliament, oftenly address the assembly in Galician and the meeting minutes are recorded in standard Portuguese. More in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reintegrationism

lobo_mau

Correction:
The biggest situation of linguistic closeness happens between Portugal and Spanish Galicia.

NEDSIRELAND

Actually, Galego (aka Galego/Portugues) is one of the four Languages recognized as 'Spanish:' Galego, Euskera, Catalan and Castellano.
Our cousins in Pontevedra (Galicia) read, write, speak and understand Galego/Portugues, as do most of the people in the Xunta de Galicia's other Provinces. What surprises me is that Newspapers (Voz de Galicia & Faro de Vigo) are printed in Castellano.

El Caudillo, Generalissimo Francisco Franco's desire for a single language for all of Spain (Uno, Grande y Libre) died with him.

Back to the original theme of this thread:
You can find a Bus that goes Lisbon-Sevilla, continuing on to Malaga. It runs about 4-days a week and is operated by Eurolines. It departs Sete Rios and calls at Oriente before crossing the Vasco da Gama Bridge and continuing East to Badajoz. It does not go via the Algarve or Huelva Province

lreynold1

Hi, everyone,
I'll just put in one more "off topic" comment about the Castellano/Portuguese relationship before my two cents on getting from Lisbon to Sevilla.

In my experience, it is usually the case that native Continental Portuguese speakers have no trouble understanding their Castillian speaking neighbors, but that Spaniards have tremendous difficulty unless the Portuguese speaker speaks extremely slowly (no problem with reading of course). And that even goes for some of my Brazilian friends! They sometimes have trouble with the continental version of Portuguese as well.

Now, about the buses. I was going to post on this thread earlier, but my experience last spring when I was living in Lisbon was that the only bus I could find between Lisbon and Sevilla was one going from Sete Rios to Oriente to Setubal to Faro, Huelva and then Sevilla. It was a LONG all day trip, with a 45 minute lunch stop at a highway rest area with cafeteria and restaurant. Several years earlier, though, I had taken the bus from Lisbon to Madrid and distinctly remember people getting off at a rest stop somewhere near Badajoz to wait for a connection to Sevilla. But I couldn't find that option anywhere this past spring when I was looking.

My impression is that if you buy tickets in the Sete Rios bus station you are going to be able to choose only from the RedeExpresso (portuguese bus line) and its partners, but that out at Oriente there are lots of little kiosks scattered throughout the bus lanes that sell tickets on other bus lines. That was where I got my Madrid bus ticket several years ago and maybe explains why I couldn't find a trip via Badajoz when I went to Sete Rios to get my Sevilla ticket.

Since I'm likely to do this again sometime, I'd really appreciate any clarification people can provide -- by the way, Ned, I went to Euroline's website, and unless I'm doing something wrong, I found that the only possible destinations on that company from Lisbon were France or Switzerland. So any help you can provide would be great! Thanks, Laurie

NEDSIRELAND

lreynold1 (in pertinent part) writes: "... Ned, I went to Euroline's website, and unless I'm doing something wrong, I found that the only possible destinations on that company from Lisbon were France or Switzerland. So any help you can provide would be great! Thanks, Laurie"

My Bad! You're not doing anything wrong; the info I posted earlier is no longer accurate. I checked Eurolines and Julia Tours (out of Barcelona) that used to operate that route, and found nothing. But I traveled that route several years ago and the Bus was invariably full.

So, it looks like you may hace to connect thru Albufeira or Faro with Eva-Bus or Damas SA to get to Huelva or Sevilla. Sorry about that!