We leave the boat securely at the dock in Saint Malo and get a rental car for our road trip to Guarda Portugal. Sher has an appointment for her residence permit application in Guarda, a town near the Spanish border. During summer (read: vacation) months, flights are extremely expensive. So we decide to drive instead of buying two airline tickets.
We cross France, north to south, and make it into Spain. We thought we’d look for a place to stay along the shore before the highway turns and takes us inland. The small town of Deba is packed and there doesn’t look to be any place to park and no accommodations available. We think we’ll continue on a bit further, but that turns into another few hours and it’s getting late. We pull off at Vitoria-Gasteiz and find a place off the highway. But the rooms are 170 Euros per night, rather than the 120 advertised. We decide to look further afield and find a place more reasonable. We call ahead and book a place 30 min further along our route south. It’s very basic, but we’re going for reasonable and clean… and 100 Euros was better. There’s a restaurant, but this place is actually part of a gas station/rest stop, so our expectations are low. It turns out that the rooms are very clean, the restaurant (serving a 3-course dinner for 16 Euros each) was quite good, and the breakfast was very good!
Onward the next morning, the 16th… appointment day. The residence permit application appointment at the AIMA offices are very hard to get and you don’t want to miss your appointment for anything! You’d have a real problem… rescheduling is not an option online, and calling is not an option either, as it is nearly impossible to reach a human. And if you do, they almost always say, “no appointments available at this time, keep trying”! Initially, you apply for a residence visa from your home country. This visa allows you entry into Portugal so you can apply for the residency permit… approval of the residency permit application at the AIMA appointment is what actually allows you to reside in the country. When you receive your initial visa to travel to Portugal, you’ll usually (but not always) get assigned an AIMA appointment somewhere in Portugal… a random location it seems, and not necessarily at an office anywhere close to where you will are planning to reside. People who don’t get an appointment scheduled on their visa need to call (from within Portugal) continuously, trying to schedule this appointment. People have noted that they call literally hundreds of times a day for months on end, only to be told that appointments are not available at this time. The problem is so bad, that the Portuguese government has extended the visa validity of ALL residence visa holders until next June (2025) so they can catch up on the backlog. Everyone wants to move to Portugal.
So we leave plenty of time and arrive in Guarda at noon for Sher’s 4pm appointment, lol. We first drive to the office to make sure we have the correct address and location, then we find a place to park and have lunch. After lunch, we go back to the AIMA office, which opens at 2pm… can’t hurt to be there early in case they can take Sher early. A 4pm appointment on a Friday afternoon during the height of vacation time may mean that they don’t get to us. That would be so frustrating after the cost of the car and 2 days of driving each way. It’s not uncommon for people to be told at the end of the day that they can’t take them and that they will receive an email with a new appointment. That would be disappointing, but still not as bad as not having an appointment at all. Sher waits… and waits… and waits. The office closes at 4:30pm. There are two people waiting with 2pm appointments and one with a 3pm appointment… all before me. It’s 4:30pm and they just call the two people who have 2pm appointments. Sher is getting nervous, but there’s nothing to do except wait until they call her in or tell her they can’t take her today.
A little after 4:30pm they call her in! Yippee!!! Usually, these appointments take 45-60 minutes, but they do everything in 20 minutes. By 5pm Sher has her paperwork for successfully submitting her residence permit application and approval of initial temporary residency (2 years, then you can apply for renewal of 3 years). They’ll send the card in the mail, but with the paperwork in hand, she’s now a resident of Portugal!!! Yay!
We fuel up and start on the journey back to Saint Malo. It’s already late (Portugal is 1 hour earlier than Spain and France) so it’s almost 7pm. We decide to drive only as far as Salamanca Spain and stay there. Wim is driving and Sher looks for a place. The hotels along the highway are expensive, so she picks one in the city with good reviews and makes a reservation. We get there and the hotel is a lovely small place in the center of town. We walk to the main square and decide to sit outside and enjoy the plaza. It turns out to be a wonderful dinner and atmosphere! We have a plate of jamon Iberico (the delicious Spanish thin-sliced cured ham), white asparagus, and croquets with cheese and a bit of ham, all were beyond delicious. The hotel was comfy and not much more expensive than the road-stop place the night before.
Breakfast the following morning was a delicious buffet, with house-made cakes and pastries. We are planning to drive the rest of the way back today, because it’s always better sleeping in your own comfortable bed. But it’s Sunday and vacationers are all heading back home it seems, so there’s lots of traffic! We finally make it back to Saint Malo and drop off the car at 1am. A long drive, but a wonderfully and very successful trip!
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