places to stay en route to santander
Feb 3rd 2011, 8:27 pm
#16
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
i make my own gin in my still .we had a couple of pints of it last night in ayamonte.i passed out about 3am.at 6am i got fone call from my dinking buddy.that was wicked stuff he said.i know it tasted like rocket fuel i replied.then he said thats what im ringing to warn you about.what ever you dont fart.im ringing from seville.
Feb 4th 2011, 11:44 am
#17
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
i make my own gin in my still .we had a couple of pints of it last night in ayamonte.i passed out about 3am.at 6am i got fone call from my dinking buddy.that was wicked stuff he said.i know it tasted like rocket fuel i replied.then he said thats what im ringing to warn you about.what ever you dont fart.im ringing from seville.
Feb 4th 2011, 8:01 pm
#18
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
beter to hear an old one than to hear a lot of ex pat babling on.
Feb 5th 2011, 5:24 pm
#19
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
however i myself am guilty of babling on.especialy after a couple of bottles of brandy
Mar 24th 2011, 11:38 am
#20
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
Has anyone tried the LD Lines land-bridge route to Spain? ie Portsmouth-Le Havre and St Nazaire-Gijon. It's £300 cheper than Brittany Ferries in the summer - although you have to drive from Le Havre to St Nazaire (4 hours apparently). I was thinking of trying it out.
Mar 26th 2011, 3:09 pm
#21
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
hotel zamora in zamora - only a slight detour but worth it! secure parking and good cheap tapas in the backstreets. book with cheaprooms .com/lastminute.com or similar. last year I booked and it was cheaper with breakfast than without!!!
Mar 26th 2011, 6:03 pm
#22
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
I think some has already posted this route either on this thread or one of the others on this subjectand from memory they recommended it . This was sometime in the last month or so. I think part of this might be good for going to Cork which we shall be doing sometime next year so do report back Mike.
Jul 8th 2011, 10:31 am
#23
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
I think some has already posted this route either on this thread or one of the others on this subjectand from memory they recommended it . This was sometime in the last month or so. I think part of this might be good for going to Cork which we shall be doing sometime next year so do report back Mike.
The “land bridge” is operated by LD Lines (I have no other relationship than as a customer and this post is simply for information and has no commercial intention). They have a reasonable web site once you cotton on to the navigation which provides plenty of information about the service including detailed maps of the port facilities etc. When I compared prices it was around £300 cheaper than the Santander route, but I emphasise that this is a personal observation and not a recommendation (I don't want to get sued :-) ). There is the cost of fuel for the bit between Le Havre and Saint Nazaire to factor in, of course.
Portsmouth to Le Havre. Check-in at Portsmouth for the 08:30 ferry was very slick. The gate has ANPR which recognised my car number and had the ticket printing before I'd actually stopped. The barrier has a passport scanner which checks your passport (although a man double checked) and we were through into the parking lanes within a minute. There is a new terminal building with loos; WH Smith; Costa Coffee; coach load of screaming kids; in fact everything you need in a ferry terminal :-) . Embarkation onto the catamaran was quick and efficient (although we got stuck in the line behind the driver who didn't listen to the tannoy or thought he knew better about boarding times and wandered back at the last minute – how annoying is that when you arrived at a reasonable time and were in the first lane in order to get a quick start at the other end!. The ferry is large and spacious with: three large lounges each with a bar/servery for drinks and snacks; plenty of aircraft type seats; two TV areas showing cartoons for the kids (and adults in one case). The crossing took 3½ hours and we started disembarking at 12:00.
Le Havre to Saint Nazaire. The drive to Saint Nazaire took around 4½ hours plus pit stops with (avoidable) tolls of around 12€50. We choose to use the route via Caen and St Lo which passes close by Mont-St-Michel (always good for a photo!). The ferry terminal is just up river from the big bridge and is well sign-posted from the outskirts so is easy to find. We arrived at St Nazaire at around 19:00 which seemed a bit early but we were checked through and boarded right away. The check-in was - well it was French! - after a chaotic pushing match in a portacabin (when will these foreigners get the hang of queuing? :-( ) we were issued with a boarding card and a cabin ticket and passed through security to the assembly lanes and straight onto the boat. Another short queue to pick up our cabin key and we were aboard. I hate to think what it would be like turning up just in time for a full boat so take my tip and leave plenty of time for check-in.
Saint Nazaire to Gijon. We had an outside cabin which was adequate and comfortable. No TV but you can rent a DVD and player from reception. If you want to save money you don't have to have a cabin – there are pullman seats for the intrepid – but I don't think I could sit up all night before a long drive in Spain. There is a bar/bistro and a restaurant which served a good variety of meals – French oriented as you would expect on a French ferry. (Funnily enough all the ship board announcements were just in English). We settled for chicken and chips and a bottle of vino followed by an early night. Breakfast (at extra cost) was very good - buffet style with most of the makings of a full-English if that's your bag. Arrived and disembarked right on time at Gijon at 12:00.
Gijon to Sevilla. Gijon is at the start of the A66 which goes to Seville so once you've picked up the motorway then navigation is simples. There is a small toll (with manual gates!!), around 12€00, on the bit through the Picos mountains. There is a 70Km bit missing between Benavente and Zamora – take the N630, which, although a single carriageway, is not too busy and has plenty of passing opportunities ( a word of warning: slow down through the villages as at least one had a speed trap). Otherwise your sat nav will take you via Valladolid adding 60kms or so. Actually a lot of the motorway wasn't shown on my sat nav – which is 2010 – so it must be very recent. The distance from Gijon to Seville is around 5km shorter than Santander to Seville. We stopped over at Salamanca at the Puerte Romano hotel which we can recommend – not the cheapest but has garage parking and is a short walk over the Roman bridge from the city.
Hope someone finds this useful
Jul 8th 2011, 10:55 am
#24
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
I said in a previous post that I would report back on my “Land Bridge” experience.
The “land bridge” is operated by LD Lines (I have no other relationship than as a customer and this post is simply for information and has no commercial intention). They have a reasonable web site once you cotton on to the navigation which provides plenty of information about the service including detailed maps of the port facilities etc. When I compared prices it was around £300 cheaper than the Santander route, but I emphasise that this is a personal observation and not a recommendation (I don't want to get sued :-) ). There is the cost of fuel for the bit between Le Havre and Saint Nazaire to factor in, of course.
Portsmouth to Le Havre. Check-in at Portsmouth for the 08:30 ferry was very slick. The gate has ANPR which recognised my car number and had the ticket printing before I'd actually stopped. The barrier has a passport scanner which checks your passport (although a man double checked) and we were through into the parking lanes within a minute. There is a new terminal building with loos; WH Smith; Costa Coffee; coach load of screaming kids; in fact everything you need in a ferry terminal :-) . Embarkation onto the catamaran was quick and efficient (although we got stuck in the line behind the driver who didn't listen to the tannoy or thought he knew better about boarding times and wandered back at the last minute – how annoying is that when you arrived at a reasonable time and were in the first lane in order to get a quick start at the other end!. The ferry is large and spacious with: three large lounges each with a bar/servery for drinks and snacks; plenty of aircraft type seats; two TV areas showing cartoons for the kids (and adults in one case). The crossing took 3½ hours and we started disembarking at 12:00.
Le Havre to Saint Nazaire. The drive to Saint Nazaire took around 4½ hours plus pit stops with (avoidable) tolls of around 12€50. We choose to use the route via Caen and St Lo which passes close by Mont-St-Michel (always good for a photo!). The ferry terminal is just up river from the big bridge and is well sign-posted from the outskirts so is easy to find. We arrived at St Nazaire at around 19:00 which seemed a bit early but we were checked through and boarded right away. The check-in was - well it was French! - after a chaotic pushing match in a portacabin (when will these foreigners get the hang of queuing? :-( ) we were issued with a boarding card and a cabin ticket and passed through security to the assembly lanes and straight onto the boat. Another short queue to pick up our cabin key and we were aboard. I hate to think what it would be like turning up just in time for a full boat so take my tip and leave plenty of time for check-in.
Saint Nazaire to Gijon. We had an outside cabin which was adequate and comfortable. No TV but you can rent a DVD and player from reception. If you want to save money you don't have to have a cabin – there are pullman seats for the intrepid – but I don't think I could sit up all night before a long drive in Spain. There is a bar/bistro and a restaurant which served a good variety of meals – French oriented as you would expect on a French ferry. (Funnily enough all the ship board announcements were just in English). We settled for chicken and chips and a bottle of vino followed by an early night. Breakfast (at extra cost) was very good - buffet style with most of the makings of a full-English if that's your bag. Arrived and disembarked right on time at Gijon at 12:00.
Gijon to Sevilla. Gijon is at the start of the A66 which goes to Seville so once you've picked up the motorway then navigation is simples. There is a small toll (with manual gates!!), around 12€00, on the bit through the Picos mountains. There is a 70Km bit missing between Benavente and Zamora – take the N630, which, although a single carriageway, is not too busy and has plenty of passing opportunities ( a word of warning: slow down through the villages as at least one had a speed trap). Otherwise your sat nav will take you via Valladolid adding 60kms or so. Actually a lot of the motorway wasn't shown on my sat nav – which is 2010 – so it must be very recent. The distance from Gijon to Seville is around 5km shorter than Santander to Seville. We stopped over at Salamanca at the Puerte Romano hotel which we can recommend – not the cheapest but has garage parking and is a short walk over the Roman bridge from the city.
Hope someone finds this useful
The “land bridge” is operated by LD Lines (I have no other relationship than as a customer and this post is simply for information and has no commercial intention). They have a reasonable web site once you cotton on to the navigation which provides plenty of information about the service including detailed maps of the port facilities etc. When I compared prices it was around £300 cheaper than the Santander route, but I emphasise that this is a personal observation and not a recommendation (I don't want to get sued :-) ). There is the cost of fuel for the bit between Le Havre and Saint Nazaire to factor in, of course.
Portsmouth to Le Havre. Check-in at Portsmouth for the 08:30 ferry was very slick. The gate has ANPR which recognised my car number and had the ticket printing before I'd actually stopped. The barrier has a passport scanner which checks your passport (although a man double checked) and we were through into the parking lanes within a minute. There is a new terminal building with loos; WH Smith; Costa Coffee; coach load of screaming kids; in fact everything you need in a ferry terminal :-) . Embarkation onto the catamaran was quick and efficient (although we got stuck in the line behind the driver who didn't listen to the tannoy or thought he knew better about boarding times and wandered back at the last minute – how annoying is that when you arrived at a reasonable time and were in the first lane in order to get a quick start at the other end!. The ferry is large and spacious with: three large lounges each with a bar/servery for drinks and snacks; plenty of aircraft type seats; two TV areas showing cartoons for the kids (and adults in one case). The crossing took 3½ hours and we started disembarking at 12:00.
Le Havre to Saint Nazaire. The drive to Saint Nazaire took around 4½ hours plus pit stops with (avoidable) tolls of around 12€50. We choose to use the route via Caen and St Lo which passes close by Mont-St-Michel (always good for a photo!). The ferry terminal is just up river from the big bridge and is well sign-posted from the outskirts so is easy to find. We arrived at St Nazaire at around 19:00 which seemed a bit early but we were checked through and boarded right away. The check-in was - well it was French! - after a chaotic pushing match in a portacabin (when will these foreigners get the hang of queuing? :-( ) we were issued with a boarding card and a cabin ticket and passed through security to the assembly lanes and straight onto the boat. Another short queue to pick up our cabin key and we were aboard. I hate to think what it would be like turning up just in time for a full boat so take my tip and leave plenty of time for check-in.
Saint Nazaire to Gijon. We had an outside cabin which was adequate and comfortable. No TV but you can rent a DVD and player from reception. If you want to save money you don't have to have a cabin – there are pullman seats for the intrepid – but I don't think I could sit up all night before a long drive in Spain. There is a bar/bistro and a restaurant which served a good variety of meals – French oriented as you would expect on a French ferry. (Funnily enough all the ship board announcements were just in English). We settled for chicken and chips and a bottle of vino followed by an early night. Breakfast (at extra cost) was very good - buffet style with most of the makings of a full-English if that's your bag. Arrived and disembarked right on time at Gijon at 12:00.
Gijon to Sevilla. Gijon is at the start of the A66 which goes to Seville so once you've picked up the motorway then navigation is simples. There is a small toll (with manual gates!!), around 12€00, on the bit through the Picos mountains. There is a 70Km bit missing between Benavente and Zamora – take the N630, which, although a single carriageway, is not too busy and has plenty of passing opportunities ( a word of warning: slow down through the villages as at least one had a speed trap). Otherwise your sat nav will take you via Valladolid adding 60kms or so. Actually a lot of the motorway wasn't shown on my sat nav – which is 2010 – so it must be very recent. The distance from Gijon to Seville is around 5km shorter than Santander to Seville. We stopped over at Salamanca at the Puerte Romano hotel which we can recommend – not the cheapest but has garage parking and is a short walk over the Roman bridge from the city.
Hope someone finds this useful
WOW more than 'useful' - THANKS for the excellent info!
Jon
Jul 9th 2011, 8:38 am
#25
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
back in March the OH and I loaded the dog into car and came over on the chunnel driving down thru the France Western route, taking 3 days for the 1500 mile trip to Andalusia. Stayed in Travelodge style places and had a very enjoyable trip.
Jul 19th 2011, 12:26 pm
#26
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
To add to my previous post - the return trip:
Check-in at Gijon was of the "portacabin" variety with a fairly lengthy queue but once you were through they were loading the ferry on an ad-hoc basis so no long waits in a marshalling queue. The ferry was as before except that it docks at 06:00. They started tannoy calls to breakfast at 04:30 and a reminder to return your cabin key by 06:00. However we had checked the night before and found out that actual disembarkation was 07:00 so we had a lie in.
The procedure at Le Havre could not be more different - or more chaotic! They refused to open the check-in gates until 90mins before sailing. Arriving cars lined up in one of 5 lanes as they chose (no organisation to it at all) they then opened only 3 check-in booths so you can imagine the mad scramble as vehicles vied for position. The check-in process seemed twice as long as anywhere else. We had arrived 2 hours before (speedy French roads
) but I was seriously concerned that we might not make it on board. To make matters worse we were queue jumped by a pair of motocyclists who didn't even have a booking and wanted to buy a ticket as well as check-in. When I remonstrated (I admit a little heatedly, but we had been queueing for over an an hour) the motocyclist (a Brit) threatened to remove my specs and spit in my face - charming
So not a fun experience. The crossing was a bit rough but we did get back to Blighty on time (and in a torrential downpour)
Check-in at Gijon was of the "portacabin" variety with a fairly lengthy queue but once you were through they were loading the ferry on an ad-hoc basis so no long waits in a marshalling queue. The ferry was as before except that it docks at 06:00. They started tannoy calls to breakfast at 04:30 and a reminder to return your cabin key by 06:00. However we had checked the night before and found out that actual disembarkation was 07:00 so we had a lie in.
The procedure at Le Havre could not be more different - or more chaotic! They refused to open the check-in gates until 90mins before sailing. Arriving cars lined up in one of 5 lanes as they chose (no organisation to it at all) they then opened only 3 check-in booths so you can imagine the mad scramble as vehicles vied for position. The check-in process seemed twice as long as anywhere else. We had arrived 2 hours before (speedy French roads
) but I was seriously concerned that we might not make it on board. To make matters worse we were queue jumped by a pair of motocyclists who didn't even have a booking and wanted to buy a ticket as well as check-in. When I remonstrated (I admit a little heatedly, but we had been queueing for over an an hour) the motocyclist (a Brit) threatened to remove my specs and spit in my face - charming So not a fun experience. The crossing was a bit rough but we did get back to Blighty on time (and in a torrential downpour)
Jan 29th 2012, 9:09 pm
#27
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
We would agree that with a couple of wee stops and a short meal break it is a 11hr run. However having made the trip several times now we almost always have a break.
When we have long days we have driven Ayamonte/Santander in the day and stayed overnight then had a very pleasant half day in what is really a very nice holiday resort. On wednesday we arrived a little late from UK and the sun was really warm and crowds were walking the promenade.
The arrival and departure times of the boat mean that on the UK leg you would have to leave CE at 03.00 to be safe for the 45min check in deadline. On the Spain leg if the boat is late or there are delays unloading you leave Santander at about 14.00. At this time of year that means the bulk of the drive is in darkness and the weather is not always good.
We have taken the easy route and now break the journey both up and down but in an asymetric way. Plasencia is about half way but northbound we go past to the Salamanca area and stop over there with an easy run in after a nights sleep. Southbound we head to down Caceres and then head to Ayamonte in the daylight and have lots of daylight left to unload and take the house out of mothball state and freshen it up.
The good news is despite the heavy rains this year there has been no adverse affects and the weather is just perfect mid-afternoon temps of 20* cool evenings and gin clear azure blue skys. Get on down here asap.
When we have long days we have driven Ayamonte/Santander in the day and stayed overnight then had a very pleasant half day in what is really a very nice holiday resort. On wednesday we arrived a little late from UK and the sun was really warm and crowds were walking the promenade.
The arrival and departure times of the boat mean that on the UK leg you would have to leave CE at 03.00 to be safe for the 45min check in deadline. On the Spain leg if the boat is late or there are delays unloading you leave Santander at about 14.00. At this time of year that means the bulk of the drive is in darkness and the weather is not always good.
We have taken the easy route and now break the journey both up and down but in an asymetric way. Plasencia is about half way but northbound we go past to the Salamanca area and stop over there with an easy run in after a nights sleep. Southbound we head to down Caceres and then head to Ayamonte in the daylight and have lots of daylight left to unload and take the house out of mothball state and freshen it up.
The good news is despite the heavy rains this year there has been no adverse affects and the weather is just perfect mid-afternoon temps of 20* cool evenings and gin clear azure blue skys. Get on down here asap.
I wondered if you could recommend an hotel in Caceres. We are taking the ferry to Bilbao which arrives at 07:30 so we should get to Caceres mid afternoon and have time for a good look round. I believe you recommended Caceres on another thread.
Jan 30th 2012, 1:21 am
#28
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Re: places to stay en route to santander
We have stayed in 3 different hotels the most convenient and the one we have stayed most often at is the Barcelo. It is very close to the motorway and well up to Barcelo 4* standard although we have not eaten in the restaurant they only open at 9pm but the bar meals are good enough. It's just to far from the center to walk comfortably so when we have gone into town we have crossed the road and caught a bus. We aim to spend between between 30 and 50 euro for a double room for the night and this one falls in the middle if you shop around. I'll report back on the other 2 later.
