Yes, that’s the right route and yes, in our opinion, it is worth the toll cost, especially with a trailer and an old boy Landy - part of the adventure, yes, but don’t be setting yourself up for a nightmare, a trailer and unsuitable Portuguese thoroughfares. Sat nav has in the past sent us down some very unsuitable routes over here, even muddy, woodland tracks! Those toll roads have some steep inclines, but at least they will have a crawler lane. Off of the tolls will be worse.

So, at the Span-Portugal border (Vilar Formoso) just after you cross you will see a sign directing Foreigners/Estrangeiros to leave the road at a sort of service station area. Here you must register your credit card which will be linked to your vehicle registration, for you to use the electronic toll parts of your route, denoted by road signs showing a sort of radar symbol. Price boards will be shown before each camera gantry. However, not all of your journey will be electronic tolls. When you see toll booths, manned or unmanned, you must NOT take the green Via Verde lane to drive straight through, electronic toll registration will not cover you for this. If you do, when time comes to leave the road, you will be fined. At toll booths, you must stop and take a ticket, and then hand over ticket and pay bill when you exit or that part of the road ends. So basically, if you see at toll booth, get in a correct lane to stop at it.

If you’re stopping overnight, Ibis Valladolid is a good bet, Ibis Salamanca will not be a good bet with a trailer!! We have also stopped several times at a restaurant with rooms just off the main route after Salamanca, signposted off as accommodation at La Fuente de San Esteban, but you’ll quickly stop before that town at a wee hamlet called Las Cantinas. Easy parking for you and very reasonably priced. No English spoken but friendly.

good luck

Just read dingg’s reply. Just to say again, Ibis Salamanca will not be suitable with a landy and trailer. City centre hotel with tight, pokey underground parking. We had a swb, low-ish top Van, no trailer, and sweated on getting in, very nearly never left!!!Yes, it was great for walking our dog at the park opposite and for discovering the city, but in your situation, no, No, NO � ����

Either way, at Vilar Formoso, you have no choice, as an estrangeiro, but to register your credit card to be charged for your journey on the electronic tolls. I say you have no choice - I suppose you could drive past, not pull off where indicated, but I wouldn’t advise it. You could be stopped and asked to produce your document that the registering machine will give you, and I imagine an unregistered vehicle registration going past the cameras might flag up a need to stop that car. We’ve never had a problem with being incorrectly charged on the credit card.

I am assuming that you intended travelling via Brittany Ferries. They are rarely affected by weather and it has to be bad to stop them. If you are not a seasoned sailor I don’t think you would enjoy a journey in that kind of weather. We have travelled on their boats for more than 10 years now and have to say their biggest ships take the bad weather pretty well. The Cap is in my view the smoothest and the flagship Pont next however for the past couple of weeks Pont has been in dry dock in Santander for annual maintenance and I assume was being covered by one of the economie boats. Both the Etretat and Baie de Seine missed sailings due to the storms and Plymouth - Spain closes for the winter with Pont reallocated to French routes. Portsmouth - Spain still operates and my SIL was on Cap to Bilbao last week back this week and he said it was pretty rough. There is little difference between Santander and Bilbao as arrival points but it would mean staring you journey in Portsmouth.

Just an update in case anybody else who is a member and having the same issues....
via a contact I found out earlier that they have 30 people on a waitlist for the Tue/Wed crossings (all from this weekends cancellations), these people will get the first options if any accommodation comes available (there is space for vehicles etc but no cabins).
Also told that Fridays crossing is full but a strong possibility it may be cancelled also as weather due to get worse from Wednesday evening.

By pure luck and stubbornness I’ve been checking the website every 15mins since last night and just managed to make a booking.... I guess nobody on the list wanted an outside two berth.

My alternative plan (that bizarrely the operators won’t offer as its ran as a different company) which might benefit others and hence I’m posting here was... on Tuesday there is a Brittany ferry from Cork Ireland to Santander, very cheap and lots of availability, to get to Cork there are Pembroke to Wexford ferries running twice a day.

Good Luck

Well done persistence pays. We did the Santander-Cork run last July OK but it is a slower smaller boat on economie terms. We were exhausted after family visits to Spain so slept most of the trip so didn’t notice the difference. HID insists on a porthole so we always take an outside 2/4 berth.