Road Trip Wednesday: Lisbon to Valencia in One Day

We rolled out of Lisbon for the last time at 6:45 in the morning, the city still quiet, the summer light just starting to stretch across the rooftops.

We’d come over from the hotel around 6:00 to get the car loaded: small bags, one guitar, the cat carrier, the bird cage, and a few miscellaneous odds and ends. Everything fit without a struggle, so it was time to climb the crazy corkscrew ramp of the parking garage one final time.

(If you missed the video documenting what that’s like, you can find it here: Instagram link.)

Once we hit street level, Kristie jumped out of the car, deposited the last set of keys and the garage opener into our mailbox, and we were on the road. That was it. No turning back.

The streets and highway were almost empty as we made our way east. By mid-morning, the city had long faded into the rearview, replaced by the Alentejo’s rolling plains.

Remembering our previous journey on this trail, we stopped at the second-to-last rest station in Portugal to pick up sandwiches and drinks for a later lunch. There are rest stops in Spain, but they’re extremely variable, and we weren’t sure what we’d be able to get. We figured it would be smart to play it safe instead and stock up where we knew we could.

Before 10:00 AM, we crossed into Spain. No fanfare, no formal welcome, just the quiet satisfaction of knowing we’d officially started the next chapter.

If you read the previous post about our road trip in June, you know that “quickest route” doesn’t mean “best route. “This trip, we opted to make the detour that swings up close to Toledo rather than going for the direct path through the wastes of La Mancha. Although it’s technically longer, it only added about 20 minutes overall, and we were on major highways almost the entire time. We only spent about 40 kilometers on smaller “N” roads before we were back on the smooth ribbon of the autovía.

When we moved from Porto to Lisbon, Lexie howled the entire 3 ½ hours she was in the car. This time, she only complained for about 15 minutes before calming down. We’d hear an occasional “meow,” and she definitely had things to say when we’d check on her during stops, but overall, she was a champ.

We stopped only when necessary for bio breaks, which meant eating lunch in the car while driving, something that is borderline illegal in Spain.

Officially, the rule is you can’t do anything that distracts you while driving. This is mainly aimed at phone use and texting, which I think we’ll all agree is a good thing. Eating and drinking aren’t explicitly banned, but the police can interpret the law however they like, and drivers have been pulled over for sipping from a water bottle.

Still, with an open road ahead, very little traffic, and no police sighted for 350 kilometers, we decided to chance it.

By late afternoon, we rolled into Valencia. The sun was warm but not oppressive, the streets lively but not overwhelming. We headed straight to the apartment to drop off the carload of essentials we’d brought with us, plus Lexie and the birds, everyone eager for a quiet, settled space after the day’s journey.

We gave the animals a quick round of “welcome home” attention, then locked up and made our way to the hotel. Check-in complete and bags unloaded, we headed up to the top-level restaurant for an easy dinner (and more importantly, a couple of glasses of wine!). Sated and exhausted, we collapsed onto crisp white sheets, grateful for air conditioning, Wi-Fi, and the knowledge that the road was finally behind us.

One day. 900 kilometers. And just like that, we were here.