tonysinno

Hi there bought a place by Villamartin thinking of driving over next time. Where is best to get Ferry from and too? Live North West of England any advice appreciate

Tony

FranE

The ferry to northern Spain (Santander or Bilbao) is quite a lot more expensive than the ferry to France, and you have a night on board, but for us it's still quicker, and with the saving in fuel and overnight stops, we don't think there's much difference in cost overall.


The usual determining factor in our case is the ferry times of departure and arrival. The Santander departures from Plymouth are very convenient for us but they arrive after lunch so we don't get home until 11-ish at night. The Bilbao crossings arrive early in the day so we can get home at a reasonable time, but they leave Portsmouth at 8 in the morning!


They're both operated by Britanny Ferries, so I'd recommend looking at the times and see what suits you best. (I'm so glad we're only an hour from Plymouth! I always feel sorry for the people who have a long drive from the north of England.)

Bridie55

And it's so less stressful than driving through France especially as you get further south. We live in Folkestone next to the tunnel but would rather the 2 hours to Portsmouth and the overnight ferry to Santander/Bilbao to get to Almunecar with one more overnight stop. And we arrive reasonably fresh and don't need a week to recover like we used to even with 3/4 stops through France/Spain. We would never go back to that.

FranE

I would just add that having bought our place (a doer-upper) in March last year, we've done the return drive 3 times now with a fully loaded car / trailer, and are sick to death of it! We had a lot of stuff to bring over so it was unavoidable, but on our last trip we bought a car to keep there, so we're looking forward to flying next time and getting there in half a day. And at less than half the cost.

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

MikeJ

The Sunday Bilbao service leaves Portsmouth at 22:30 in the evening so a comfortable day's drive from the NW or NE, and you have 2 nights on board because the ship calls in at Roscoff to change crew and restock - it arrives in Bilbao at 07:00 (Spanish time) which gives plenty of driving time in Spain. We have driven from Bilbao and swum in the Med in Valencia at 3 o'clock!

lic

Hi,
Have a look at www.about-France.com
They have an up to date route to Orihuela Costa. I particularly like the route to Irun.
I normally use the Chunnel, as I think it's easier.
Safe journey

VFR

2 nights on board = even more time for Brittany to extract more payment from a passenger.

FranE

I've never laid out so much as a ha'penny on any ferry crossing. Take your own food, tea/coffee bags, long life milk, 2 litre bottle of water and a boiler. Lots of people do it.

MikeJ

You still have to eat and drink even if you stop at service areas when driving. Brittany prices are quite reasonable.

If you really want to do it on the cheap there is an economy option ie no-frills crossing, no entertainment, basic catering, not such luxurious ships etc. You can even have a seat instead of a cabin.

stu7373

Hi,
We did our first road trip down to Spain last month, and we enjoyed it.
Depending what you want out of it, either to get down their as soon as possible, or to make it a bit of a holiday...
A good website to use is viamichelin, although I would take some of there routes with a pinch of salt, but it can give you a breakdown of how much fuel you would use, providing you put your car details in. It will also give you how much it will cost on the toll roads.
For us, we did a bit of an adventure on the way down, going via Paris (nightmare to drive round so would suggest keeping clear) and stayed overnight in Millau. The plan was to continue down the following day to Villamartin, but we decided to take a detour and overnight stay in Andorra...!!

But for the return journey we did it quick and simple, drove towards Bilbao and stopped overnight near Bordeaux, then continue the following day to Calais.

There was 5 of us in total, 2 adults and 3 kids/teenagers so we did stop a number of time on the way. Would we do it again? Yes, but providing we was going to be there for at least 4 - 5 weeks. Otherwise for a 2 week holiday we would fly next time. Probably works out to be about the same price, if you leave it to the last minute to book flights...