Post It from the road between Salamanca & Portugal. Saturday 10th May, 2014

I decided to write this additional ‘Post It’ in case anyone at the Caravan Club forum are keen to actually see what the new electronic tolls in Portugal are like and the vast change in scenery between Spain and Portugal was worth mentioning.

We left Salamanca late morning having shopped at the Lidl supermarket fairly close to Camping Regio and refuelling at the Galp service station close by. I had intended to use the E.Leclerc supermarket for cheaper fuel but as we passed it on our way after filling up I saw we would not get under their 2.8m barriers and the diesel was only 3 cents cheaper at 1.28 Euros a litre in any case.

As we headed along the A62 from Salamanca we crossed a very large relatively open landscape. Unlike the land to the north of Salamanca which was largely crops this new area was more grassland and whilst still farming land we saw many long horned cattle, sheep and goats. We recognised the buildings as being cattle sheds and the further west we travelled we saw the land became more rugged, a little bit like the Yorkshire Moors, and there were fewer buzzards to be seen. We crossed the River Agedua at Ciudad Rodrigo, which was quite wide and full of water and I wondered what a town with a name like that may have been important for at one time. There was a castle Rodrigo on the Portuguese side of the border as well.

We crossed the border at Fuentes de Onoro and was surprised to not only see the statutory supermarkets, shops and petrol stations often seen at border crossing towns but we also saw a lady on the Portuguese side assisting foreign drivers with tourist information, she was wearing a yellow tabard.

We soon saw the signs indicating that foreign vehicles would need to stop and register for the new electronic tolls in about 5 miles along the A25 motorway. We saw the signs directing into a service area and could see there were electric machines at toll barrier which run just aside the motorway and the service station. Two men in yellow vests were speaking to motorists as we pulled into the service station part for lunch. I took the opportunity to go and see how it all worked before having to present ourselves at the toll barriers and one of the motorway assistants who happened to be there at the time we were explained it all to me in English.

As a foreign vehicle in Portugal you need to register for the collection of the electronic tolls by driving up to these barriers where there is a machine like an ATM, a barrier and a camera. You insert your payment card, chip side up as shown, into the machine and it must recognise it is a British card and the machine starts telling you what to do in English. You removed your card and a long paper receipt was produced. The assistant had told me to check the receipt to ensure the camera had read your registration number correctly, which was printed on the receipt, and it told you to keep the document. The barriers opened and you could drive through and go back onto the motorway.

The assistant had shown me a large map at an information point in the service area which showed all the toll motorways in Portugal. He explained that the red roads were the new electronic toll roads and as I travelled along them I would see signs telling me how much taxes that section would be and the cameras that captured my vehicle’s registration number were clearly visible on overhead gantries. I assumed we were a class 2 vehicle because we only had 2 axles rather than like the system in France of weight and height. He said that my registration was valid for a period of 30 days only and the tolls would be collected directly from my payment card, if we stayed longer I would need to register a card again after 30 days.

The black roads on the map were the old type toll roads where you collect a ticket and pay on exit and I still had to do this if we used those motorways as well.

He explained that if we did not register the card then then system would pick up our vehicle and we would be sent a bill in the post, if we did not pay the bill and returned to Portugal we would be stopped because the system would highlight we were back again and owed money but he did say that on the first occasion we would be asked to pay the charge with no penalty imposed.

I noticed that he later came around our vehicle, possible to check the registration number, to see if we did register after they left and I had seen his colleague using a computer which was obviously liked into the main system by mobile telephone or other similar system.

We registered in accordance with the rules and it was all very simple but I did notice another Dutch motorhome drive into the service area and out again onto the motorway without going through the collection barriers, which whilst possible to do with ease was impossible to do without knowing you should not be doing so if you had not previously registered so perhaps he had or had chosen not to? We met a Scottish couple at our next site who had travelled down from Porto and had not recognised where these electronic registration systems were when they changed from cash to electronic roads, which is what I had previously read on the Club Together Forum.

Once into Portugal the landscape changed dramatically, very hilly with lots of steep descents and emergency sand pits on the bends and climbs back up again. The land was hewn out of slid stone which may well have been granite or some similar hard stone. In the distance we could see snow on the tops of the very highest point which we later learned from our campsite managers was the Serra de Estrela Mountains at 2000m and Portugal’s highest peaks. These were visible from our next campsite. The landscape had changes so dramatically from Spain that it was as if it was carved out of a wholly different continent and I am glad we had decided to take the toll motorway and not avoid the tolls. The roads leading off seemed narrow, windy and still had to climb the heights we were experiencing. The toll roads were not in all that brilliant condition with frequent, badly repaired, potholes in the nearside lanes so beware.

I have posted some photos of the toll registration area and I hope this information helps those who may be unsure of what to expect.

Regards, Roy