Is Segovia Worth Visiting for a Day? What We Saw in Just 6 Hours

On our recent family road trip from the UK through Portugal and Spain, we needed somewhere to break up the long drive from Sedella in the Andalusian mountains to Santander on the north coast.

Segovia was an easy choice.

My husband had wanted to visit for a while, mainly to see the famous Roman aqueduct, which is one of the best-preserved in the world.

The only issue was time.

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Visiting the Costa Nova Striped Houses & Cool Architecture in Portugal

Colourful striped houses right on the beach, it looks like one of the most photogenic places in Portugal.

But what’s it actually like to visit?

We spent two nights in Costa Nova as part of our Spain and Portugal family road trip in April, arriving late in the dark after our overnight ferry crossing and a long drive across Spain and Portugal.

The next morning we were visiting family in Viseu, then heading all the way south to Salema in the Algarve.

That meant we only had one full day here, and so the weather was just whatever it was going to be.

And honestly, our experience wasn’t quite the sunny postcard you might expect!

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Sedella, Spain, in April: Return Visit for 2 Days to the Andalusian Mountains

Sedella isn’t somewhere you stumble across by accident.

It’s a small white village set high in the mountains of southern Spain, and you really have to want to go there, or know about it.

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Salema, Portugal, in April: Return Visit for 3 Days on the Algarve

You know when you return somewhere and hope it feels just as good as the first time?

That was Salema for us.

We’d visited Salema in February once before and loved this quiet pocket of the Algarve. We’re not fans of built-up, tourist-heavy places, and Salema offered a peaceful escape that felt completely different from the busier parts of the region.

On that first visit, we stayed at NAU Salema Beach Village and honestly felt like the only guests there. It was that quiet.

So coming back again during the UK school Easter holidays in April, how would it compare? Would we love it just as much?

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Is Priority Disembarkation Worth It on Brittany Ferries? (With vs Without)

When you’re on a long ferry crossing, especially one that lasts over 20 hours, the last thing you want is to sit waiting to get off.

So when booking our ferry with Brittany Ferries, we added priority disembarkation on the outward journey.

We were travelling lots with long drives on a road trip across Spain and Portugal, so thought it would be nice to get off quickly and crack on with our first long drive. 

On the way home we decided not to pay extra for the priority disembarkation as we didn’t have such a long drive and thought we’d just save the money, as we were heading home anyway by this point.  

But did we make the right choice?

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