Winter sun trip, January 2019

[Joe Griffin]

Just starting planning for a winter sun trip in January. We plan to travel Portsmouth to Caen and then down through France visiting a few friends on the way. Cross over to Spain near St Jean del Luz. After that no plans but generally head west and south towards Portugal (Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, Porto, Lisbon and then southwards). Will be leaving UK around December 28th. Just thinking about books/guides. We have some apps, sat nav etc but wondering about a couple of good guide books to get now to help plan. Any suggestions on routes, places to visit and stop over etc would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[mfw]

Bit of a gamble on portugal weather that time of year

 

[Joe Griffin]

Bit of a gamble on portugal weather that time of year

Could you tell me more?

 

[mfw]

Could you tell me more?

Spanish med is more guaranteed i think

Check out accuweather for when you want to go it will tell you what it was like if you look at the history bit

 

[Speve]

The area around Conil de frontera is very nice weather usually pretty good lots of places all the way down to Tarifa to stay at

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[BreweryDave]

It is true that the Med coast is warmer and generally better, but Portugal is cheaper!

 

[klaatu]

I accept that this is anecdotal, and only applies to one particular year, but we had fabulous weather in Portugal last winter. I got somewhat uncomfortably sunburnt walking naked on the beach on Christmas Day, with the temperature approaching 30 degrees. Often when I checked weather reports, we were having better weather than Benidorm (smug mode off).

We may well do the same again this year, and I promise to revisit this thread and own up if doesn't turn out the same way this time. Will try to avoid the sunburn this time, though.

 

[TerryL]

We tend to do much the same as the OP but an integral part of our daily "planning" is to check the weather forecast, both short and medium term. Then if it looks fine we'll just dawdle along but if it's going to be grotty we push on a bit. The weather anywhere these days is so unpredictable making any other plans we think to be a waste of time. We plan our crossing dates then take whatever comes.

 

[Joe Griffin]

OK so suppose we are driving down through France and the weather forecast says it is going to be much very bad on the atlantic coast. What routes would folk suggest we follow over the Pyrenees and through Spain heading southwards?

 

[BreweryDave]

What routes would folk suggest we follow over the Pyrenees and through Spain heading southwards

Via the motorway either bordeaux or perpignan. Atlantic Coast less risk than the A75 in winter.

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[TerryL]

If the weather looks to be iffy use the Bordeaux route and invest in French tolls to cross the border via the autoroutes. Believe me it is far, far better than battling the D-roads.