Evoras to Evora?

[TomE]

Alan suggested over on another thread that there should be a prize for the first picture of an Evora (the car) in Evora (the town in Portugal) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evora

I have to confess that I've already started planning that trip - how sad am I! I was holding off mentioning it here (we need a few people with actual cars to drive down there after all!), but seeing as you mentioned it ....

I was reckoning Lotus or one of the motoring magazines would probably be the first to achieve it (I'll volunteer to do it in a factory demo car for a write up pre customer deliveries if they want ). But even if I'm not the first, I thought it would make for an interesting journey and destination. My parents used to have a villa in the Algarve (southern Portugal) and I also travelled round Lisbon and the Alentejo region: Evora is the regional capital but I didn't get as far as that.

I'm toying with either early autumn 2009 or more likely spring 2010 but need to get into the planning some more. It's a long slog from the UK, so need to weigh up batting down there quickly and spending some time in the region versus a slower scenic tour down but less time once there.

I'll keep you posted, but don't expect much in the way of details until well into next year

[Bibs]

Would a ferry to Santander or Bilbao be easier?

I went to Portugal for a stag do last year for 4 days. I'm not sure where we were (!) but it was nice, the beach was lovely

[TomE]

Ferry to northern Spain means less driving but not sure it saves any time and it depends what you think about 24-36 hours on a boat with not much to do! Jo and Scott took their 2-11s that route going to Ascari over the summer and it worked OK. But driving down through France and over the Pyrenees might be fun too.

[Guest EBORA]

I've done this trip with five others in 2 Carltons, sadly not Lotus ones! It was one long journey down to Portimao, Algarve, which was done non stop as we had 3 drivers per car. I got picked up from London at 1030pm (the cars came down from Nottingham) and we arrived at the villa around 3am about 28 hours later! The last slog through Portugal was particularly hard.

I remember we had about 2 miles to go when the other car did a dodgy manoeuvre on one of those peculiar Algarve roundabouts, however the waiting police car decided to pull me up. Seeing me & passengers worse for wear the policeman assumed we had been on a drinking binge the last 24 hours so when he asked, "you, ahh you, you drinking?" I replied, "You buying?!"

Well the car just roared with laughter however the policeman was not amused and immediately helped me out of the car to be breathalised. He was disappointed when the led went green.

Edited September 8, 2008 by EBORA

[TomE]

Nice story! My abiding memory of driving in Portugal was in the evenings encountering unlit donkey carts in the middle of the road .... on the main road from Faro airport west to the Algarve resorts. We're talking about 20 years ago and they've since had EU funding to upgrade the road and, as you don't now see many donkey carts, presumably the owners were persuaded to switch to something with horsepower.

In terms of long drives, my best one was London to Siena in Tuscany via Switzerland - great roads, fantastic scenery and we managed to get tickets for the Palio when we arrived. Hitting the Milan ring road at 5pm on a Friday and trying to navigate to my brother-in-law's apartment was the low point though!

[hedgerley]

Take it from me, after my discussions at the Evora viewing last night, Lotus will be the first to do this and sooner than you might think.......

[TomE]

I must remember to ask them if they need a co-driver

[hedgerley]

No point mate, I'm already in there. Not that I really expect Steve Crijns to take me up on my generous offer............