Flying in Portugal (north & central)

[172driver]

Am planning a little jolly around central and northern Portugal in the next few weeks. No Algarve. Just a few days, leaving from southern Spain (Malaga). Anybody got any airports (places) to recommend, unusual procedures to warn of, dos and don'ts ? Will be VFR all the way. Currently planned route is Malaga - Porto - Cascais - Seville - Malaga. Would like to include a couple of stops at smaller fields in Portugal. All comments welcome.

[mpcosta]

Places to recommend surelly are not in shortage. There are, obviously, some places that, as you state, have some "small" cons.

For example, Cascais usually has long hold/apron waiting times. It's inside Lisboa TMA, a very busy airspace.
Porto ( LPPR ) , as is an intl' airport, has heavier landing fees than ordinary aerodromes. On the other hand, it has very good transportation.

Aveiro ( LPAV ) , Braga ( LPBR ), Coimbra ( LPCO ), Evora ( LPEV ), and a few more are also good places that can deserve a stop.to consider a stop.

As an alternate to LPPR you can use LPVL ( Maia / Vilar de Luz ), a nearby aerodrome. I don't know if you'll save any money using this facility, as it's about 20/30 minutes away (taxi) from Oporto's city centre.

Here you can get some un-official data regarding landing strips. Unfortunatelly, this page is available only in portuguese.

http://www.pelicano.com.pt/zmapa.html

Feel free to PM me, so I can fill you with more details.

MC

[172driver]

Hey, mpcosta, thanks for that link - great :ok: (I speak Spanish and Italian so can work out the Portuguese - well, kind of....:ugh: )

I'll pm you in the next few days once I got a better idea where I'd like to go. No probs flying into an int'l airpoirt, do this all the time. LPPR is probably the most convenient for the overnight. Cascais is a definite, as I'm visiting friends who live nearby. I'd just like to get some interesting stops in between....

[mpcosta]

Hey, mpcosta, thanks for that link - great :ok: (I speak Spanish and Italian so can work out the Portuguese - well, kind of....:ugh: )

I'll pm you in the next few days once I got a better idea where I'd like to go. No probs flying into an int'l airpoirt, do this all the time. LPPR is probably the most convenient for the overnight. Cascais is a definite, as I'm visiting friends who live nearby. I'd just like to get some interesting stops in between....

Allright, I'm looking forward to be of any help.

MC

[172driver]

MC, I've pm'd you with details of planned route.

[Bluebeard777]

Try Braganca, where Catherine came from. I had a nice stopover in this historic mini-city. :ok:

[172driver]

Now back (in LEMG) after a fab trip. WX miraculously improved at the 11th hour and went to Porto/Vila de Luz, Aveiro, Coimbra, Cascais and Evora.

General impressions - great :D ! Extremely friendly people, nice airfields, no landing fees (other than LPCS), very pro (and excellent English) ATC. In short, a joy to fly, can recommend highly. Lots of daunting looking mil airspace on the charts, but very helpful controllers letting us through all of them, so not really a factor. 100LL avail no problem, even at reasonable prices (at least at LPAV, where you land in an Army base, get issued a sort of visitors ID and then stroll out to have a fab seafood lunch..... doesn't get much better than that!).

A very special THANKS :ok: to fellow pruner mpcosta who provided a load of vital info and came to collect us at LPVL to show us around Porto ! Three cheers, mate !!

All in, a great experience, perhaps one of the underrated gems of flying in Europe.