Coimbra & Lisbon

From Coimbra we drove southwards to Lisbon. I remember it was on a Sunday and that we got lost somwhere near Sintra. Eventually we saw the Sintra trams standing forlornly in the depot before reaching our goal - Lisbon. We stayed at a rather informal camping site in sand dunes near to the beach at the far side of the suspension bridge.
1. Another view of tram 11.
2. Sunbeam trollybus 32 of 1958.
3. 703 at Prazeres terminus of route 28 in Lisbon.
4. Santo Amaro depot yard with concrete supports for the suspension bridge in the background.

Coimbra

By 1978 there were just two tram routes (3 & 4) in Coimbra.
1. Number 11 built by J G Brill and rebodied in 1967. The communist party slogan painted on the wall was typical of Portugal at that time.
2.
3. Sunbeam trolleybus 41 of 1963 with locally built bodywork.
4. Brill number 1 of 1910 was rebodied in 1961.

Spain & Coimbra

We left Andorra at 7:00 in the morning to avoid the traffic and drove down into Spain. I don't remember the exact route we took but we kept well north of Madrid and crossed into Portugal between Salamanca and Guarda. The standards of both the roads and the drivers deteriorated. The Spanish roads had well marked lanes. The Portuguese roads were just a strip of tarmac. Coimbra was the first Portuguese tramway we visited.
1. Lunch stop somewhere in Spain. We had never seen an arid landscape such as this before.
2. Pee break?
3 & 4. Coimbra 15 built by J G Brill in 1928.

Introduction

In August 1978 the Lomas family travelled to Lisbon and back on a camping holiday.
We left Ripley on a Saturday morning and caught an over night ferry to Normandy. On Sunday we drove south through France to the well known resort of St Etienne. The idea was to go round Paris on the Boulevard Peripherique but when we saw the Arc de Triomphe we realised we had taken a wrong turn and it was raining.
It rained all day, all night and next morning so we had to pack up a wet tent in the rain. We didn't see the St Etienne trams - it was just too wet. We pressed on southwards and fortunately the sun came out at Aviginion and we hardly saw any more rain.
1. The south coast of France and the first time we had seen the Mediterranean Sea.

2. The next day we headed inland to Andorra which seemed like one long traffic jam.

3 & 4. The following day we explored Andorra finding snow.