Entry conditions for Spain
We're planning a holiday sailing from Portsmouth to Bilbao on 4 June and returning from Cherbourg 3 weeks later. Our plan is to spend a few days in Northern Spain and then move north spending 3 or 4 days in various places. We have an ACSI card, but we keep reading things about requirements to show booked accomodation and financial liquidity on arrival in Spain.
Has anyone any advice about this, also any recommendations for sites in the Picos de Europa would be welcome. We have a towed caravan.
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You have been misled. You will not be asked to show booked accommodation or to prove financial liquidity.
Potes is a good centre for the Picos mountains and I suggest you research campsites there - ones of a style which you prefer..
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I’m envious, we toured the Picos some 20 yrs ago in our motorhome. I’d be reluctant to suggest sites based on our experience as we winged much of our stays and absolutely love it just moving at a whim from one place to another. Nor can I comment on the changes to us Brits visiting Spain since Brexit and beyond.
One site we stayed at the owner warned us that we would get little sleep due to a local fiesta taking place but adding if we wanted to ‘muck’ in we would be more than welcome. Suffice it to say we did and it was a most fabulous experience despite a language challenge. They are so friendly. Be warned the local cider is like our cloudy scrumpy and their rustic calvados is excellent! The food was brilliant too, not Mediterranean Spanish, very different but so enjoyable, lots of meats and cheeses more like an alpine cuisine.
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Good morning Marsker,
we are currently in France having arrived into Santander a fortnight ago.
I can confirm the advice given by Eurotraveller that there are no requirements on either of those items.
We had our passports checked , our Animal Heath Certificate stamped , dated & we’re on our way towards Bilbao in short time.
Enjoy your trip.
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I can endorse the comments so far. I dare say if you look really dodgy someone might enquire about you means of support. In well over a decade of trips to Europe by motorcycle I have never had a problem. The authorities are far more concerned to move the queue forward on exit from the ferry.
Potes is an excellent location for a stop. Do also visit near by Fuente De which has the longest single span cable car in the world. You can take the cable car up and walk down (from memory about 8 miles) or take the cable car in both directions.
Chris
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There are a lot of comments in the Spanish press re what we Brits need to do and have when in Spain, and there is a lot of bad feeling in certain quarters re "Brits Abroad" with some very angry protests in mainly the Basque region, but also in Malaga, but i dont think you will have a problem, legislation they are trying to introduce is that you must have written confrmation of your stay if you are going to stay with e.g. a relative, so we have a daughter lives and works in Spain so it looks like going forward we would have to have some written confirmation from her, if you have booked a hotel then the booking confirmation will be fine, as for arriving in an RV of any sort there does not seem to be any change.
going forward you must also be able to prove you are financially viable so you must have on you £97 or the equivalent in Euros, i read somewhere that bank cards or banking apps will not qualify so it looks like it will need to be in cash, but like the Uk, Spain has difficulty policing all these rules and regs, but from past experience you only need 1 gendarme who wants to prove a point and if you are breaking the law he will make your life difficult, so best to comply, after all it is not as though it is £97k
p.s. watch out for a Venice type scenario being introduced in some regions of Spain, 5 euros to enter Venice if you are a day visitor
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Rufs,
Your recital of the bureaucracy associated with EU entry reflects the rules as they have been for several years. They are never enforced.
I dare say if you present at immigration blind drunk and abusive or behave in some other outlandish way they will enforce the rules. But in reality turning up in a £60k motorhome or whatever will be sufficient to convince officials that you are a person of substance.
It is the immigration officials that have to police these rules not gendarmes and la policia.
I usually have about 50 Euros in notes in my wallet lurking there along with some Swiss francs from earlier trips. I avoid using my phone for any banking. I always use my desktop or laptop PC to access that. It is more secure. The only exception is to access my FairFX currency card when abroad. So I can quickly show via my phone that I have few hundred Euros stored on that card. That is my only concession to this bureaucracy!
My last few trips I don't think I have used cash at all. I have used the card whether at the Carrefour, a restaurant or wherever. So I suspect that the Euros in my wallet have probably been there the best part of five years and likely have cobwebs on by now!
Regarding protest against tourists in the Canaries and Majorca. They are aimed just as much at Germans as Brits. The local population rightly is up in arms regarding well healed incomers buying up property as a 2nd home and others buying to let out on AirB&B. We have the same problem in parts of the UK notably the Southwest and parts of Wales.
The other area of bad feeling is over low-grade tourists who come only for the three Bs - beer, burgers and beach! Again the locals have my sympathy. So I suspect that we are not directly in the firing line though we may get tarred with the same brush that is meant for others!
Over-tourism is a problem in lots of countries. We as a community are largely free from criticism though my son tells me that there are lots of grumbles in Switzerland about Dutch and German MoHos flooding the roads going south in summer down the A2 and into the St. Gottard Tunnel.
Chris
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Recommend this site close to Potes
Camping La Viorna, Carretera de, 39586 Santo Toribio
T 0034679130707
W https://campinglaviorna.com/en/
Stayed there in 2022. If you have a large outfit pick a pitch close to the pool, as the terraced pitches are tight to get into to (although we managed it)
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If you have a Santander account you can use your card free in a Santander atm while you are in Spain - might be an Idea to check their latest rules on this on the website but it's useful.
Second the suggestion of La Viorna and also the Fuente De, though you can't take a dog in the cable car.
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Thanks for the recommendation, we stayed there and it is a lovely site.Sadly the weather wasn't of the best and if we'd tried to go up to Fuenta De, we wouldn't have been able to see amything.
Be warned, the road up to Potes is being reconstructed through quite a narrow gorge, going up there on a Thursday, the works which have single file alternate traffic made us take about an hour extra to get there. Coming back on a Sunday was much better.
When we got to Bilbao, once passports had been checked and stamped, we were just wave straight through with no checks.
Many thanks to all those who advised,
Marsker
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Beware of keeping unused cash for too long.
We got caught out in Switzerland with notes from a previous holiday that had just gone out of date. Designs etc. do change. We could not find a bank to change them to current notes as we did not have a Swiss bank account.
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