You know what’s not the smartest decision? Driving the entire length of Portugal during a depression — especially when the national weather services advise people to stay off the roads. Yet, that’s where I found myself. Driving five and a half hours from Porto in northern Portugal to Albufeira at the southern most point of the country. To be fair, we did not know when we set out that the country had been (and was also about to be again) hit by a depression — we just knew that there was going to be rain.
With how our schedule was laid out, we didn’t have much “wiggle” room to stay an extra day in Porto. Plus we were itching to move on to the next location.
There are a few things I learned on this drive across the country. One: Portuguese infrastructure is NOT designed to handle torrential downpours. Two: The Portuguese will either drive 30 kilometers under the posted limit or as though they’re trying out for the Grand Prix. And Three: don’t let the driver get “comfortable” while driving in a torrential downpour and attempt to DJ 90s nostalgic music. It’s just not worth it, no matter how much you want to listen to that random 90s pop-band.
There were times on the road that we could barely make out the car in front of us despite being maybe 5 feet ahead. We also passed numerous cars pulled over on the side of the road hoping to wait the rain out — according to the forecast models we were looking at, it wasn’t going to clear. It wasn’t until we got south of Lisbon that the roads cleared of other cars, thankfully. But on the plus side, the rain turned what would’ve been a long (and in certain parts boring drive) into a hair raising adventure. I just don’t recommend it.
After more than five hours on the road through some very questionable conditions we arrived in Albufeira to a much needed cocktail.