By Robin Esser, TravelMail contributor
On a visit to Portugal this spring with my wife, I found that the Portuguese have invented a new tourist trap for the hundreds of thousands of us who visit the Algarve each year.
The authorities have - understandably enough - introduced tolls on the coast’s only motorway, the A22, which runs from the Spanish border, past Faro and as far as Lagos in the west.
However, rather unhelpfully, there are no warning signs that you might be turning on to a toll road in advance.
When we got on the motorway we saw a sign in Portuguese which appeared to list the costs of various types of vehicles on the road.
I reached for my supply of euros, expecting to pay at the next toll booth. But there is none. I then realised that small cameras, dangling from spindly gantries over the road, were recording my car’s details.
Certainly our car hire company at Faro airport gave us no information about the tolls, either when we hired our vehicle or when we returned it. Not a single word.
One tourist we met was so worried that he went to the local post office to pay his tolls. He was told that the people who had hired his car before him, and the drivers before them, had not paid their tolls, so he could not pay his unless he paid all those as well!
Local opposition has been long, loud and vociferous, despite a honeymoon period of ten months since the tolls were introduced last year.
Included in the opposition has been the neighbouring Spanish who claim the tolls violate the trade agreements between the two countries and totally refuse to pay.
On our return we contacted the Portuguese Embassy’s press representative who agreed there have been 'serious problems'.
'There is too much bureaucracy with all this and the interests of the Portuguese Tourist Board and our visitors have been forgotten,' she said.
'We are working on it but it has not yet been cleared up. The hire car firms are supposed to tell their customers about the tolls and to make sure they are paid. It is their responsibility.'
The Embassy issued the following statement: 'Turismo de Portugal have been and will continue to work with Estradas de Portugal (the responsible entity for the toll services) and car rental companies in order to ensure a proper solution is being put into place to provide tourists the correct information and facilitate with payment systems.'
Currently, the only way to pay the fee seems to be by leaving an open credit card account with your car hire company upon your return to the UK, particularly as the tolls are only formalised two days after you have used the road. But of course, this method could be open to abuse.
Official advice is to raise the matter with your hire car company when you get your car and take their instruction.
Now that the honeymoon period for local people is over they have mostly shunned the new motorway and taken to the old N125 road again. As a result, that road is overcrowded, more dangerous than before and a frustrating drive.
The shiny new service stations on the motorway are also suffering, reporting a disastrous drop in trade which has led them to seek compensation from the relevant authorities.
There is one advantage though. Those on the motorway have the road more or less to themselves. In late spring this year, while driving the 50 miles from Lagos to Faro, we passed or were passed by a mere 19 cars!
Now that's worth the toll fee. If you can ever figure out how to pay it.
Algarve car Hire - www.myalgarvecars.com
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