Great Western Coffee Shop

Barcelona on 13th May 2015 to Melksham (single tickets)- 2 adults, both fit(isn) and adventurer(isn) ... happy to have an overnight leg; prefer not to fly, finding absurd EuroStar prices.   Took a look at via Santander ferry, but can't get there in time (earliest start from Barcelona - realistically around 07:30).  Wonder about a ferry from the north french coast to Portsmouth or Poole.  Ideas?

A friend drove down from roscoff to Valencia this weekend. Overnight stopped in southern France.

Brittany ferries now have a monopoly on the western channel after DFDS and LD Lines both quit at the end of last season and the price this year reflects this, not helped by new low emission zones North and East of falmouth in the channel which means cheap heavy diesel isn't allowed unless the ship has scrubbers fitted.

I've done a lot of driving in France, I'm a big fan of their toll motorways. The locals don't use them, and they seem full of foreign drivers. Michelin have a toll calculator on their site. The road surface is top quality and 130kmh limits.

I did Bordeaux to calais (875km) in just under 6 1/2 hours almost entirely on toll roads including what should of been morning Rush hour, but as locals don't go on the toll roads they were clear flowing. I probably could of done it quicker if I tried. Try that in the UK... ;)

Great set of answers.   But small problem - I should have said "public transport" ... arriving in Barcelona on a cruise ship, travelling to the heart of the universe (Melksham  ;D )

SNCF are offering Barcelona-London in 10 hours (09:25 to 19:03) for ^208 - change Paris and Lille - and I'd be surprised if anything including a ferry* was cheaper.

If you ask about Barcelona-St Malo it says go via Paris anyway, so there would be no point. Those meandering overnight trains across France hardly exist any more, and I suspect never did up the west coast.

(*and just railways)

This site is quite good for train planning on the continent. Ferry wise, roscoff, St Malo, or Le havre the ferry ports are in the town. Caen ferry port is 10-15km North of the town.

http://www.rome2rio.com/

Roscoff and Le havre train stations are both within walking distance of the ferry ports. I haven't been to St Malo so unsure.

A lot of the French branch lines- such as the one to roscoff have been cut down to services that make melkshams previous service levels look good, but they do operate buses instead the rest of the day!

How about megabus.

Barcelona to bristol leaving Barca at 1630 on 13th may.

Plus side currently ^32 each plus a 50p booking fee. Free wifi on megabus coaches

Downside 34 hours on a coach and arrives in bristol middle of the night

St Malo is also pretty close to the ferries, but that means Brittany Ferries to Portsmouth (expensive, 10 hours to cross) or Condor to Poole (51/2 hours if you are lucky, but times vary day to day - ^58.50). And while you could get there in a day by train, via Paris, you'd be staying overnight for a ferry next day. Which has its good points, but cheapness (with comfort) isn't one of them.

Are the absurd prices that you're being offered by Eurostar on account of being singles?

It's often cheaper to book a return ticket and not use the return half. Choose an absurd time of day and day of week for your return.

The SNCF leg from Barcelona to Paris won't be affected.

Don't get me started on the out-of-date ticketing structure used by Eurostar. You can't even buy a London - Brussels returning Paris - London. Roll on open access through the tunnel.

Unsure about Eurostar but some of the ferry operators If you book a cheap return but don't use half of the ticket they charge penalties.

Eurostar don't. They've got the money, why bother with penalties.

It may be different if you don't use the outward half, but here I'm suggesting an unused return half.

OK ... the absurd Eurostar prices seem to be because the trains coming up from further south connected into very popular trains in Paris, and considerable sums can be saved by split ticketing, with a hotel bill saved using couchettes, which turn out on the Wednesday night to be cheaper than a reclining seat.   It would seem that the UK fares system isn't the only "interesting" one.

In the end, it turned out that singles came to an acceptable fare level; I have been known (in the distant past) to chuck out return halves but certainly some ferry companies have been know to charge back the difference between a (lower) return fare and a single.

We're tough old codgers - but not tough enough to stand 32 hours on a bus - after a relaxing (? - but I like Lisa's family; just not sure of their partners family who are part of the jaunt) holiday it would seem to take away the relaxation at one swoop - and perhaps leave me unfit for a meeting on the Friday night and a celebration of 30 years of Melksham Station's reopening on the Sunday!

One of these years, I fancy Roscoff - Plymouth and I too have noted that the daily (?) train is supplemented by buses; noting the Melksham "bad old days" comparison,  yet actually we have last buses already that take train tickets and wouldn't be surprised to see that capability expanded.

These days, all of the ferry ports in the English Channel have a degree of disconnect, and with heavy baggage that probably means taxis ... did look at Hook / Harwich, but from Spain that's absurd.   And if there had been a mid-afternoon train from Bilbao to Santander, we might well have gone Barcelona - Bilbao - Santander - Plymouth - Westbury.   Alas, a 13 minute change in Santander wasn't going to work, even though it would have been interesting to see the Spanish narrow gauge!

I've done Plymouth - Roscoff in order to get to Nantes without having to go via Paris.

The fact that the "train" at Roscoff is a bus is actually a good thing, because it means that the "train" operates via the ferry terminal. So there's no shuttle bus (or taxi) to get you to the inconvenient station.

But the ferry has serious drawbacks. It tries to do three trips per day, which makes for a complicated timetable. May have changed since I used it a few years ago. But the fact that it's trying to do unload/load and a crossing in eight hours means that you don't get a proper sleep on the overnight crossing.

If it were possible, then I think they'd be better off speeding up the day crossings and slowing down the night one - but I suspect that it's not possible.

Is such a surcharge legal?

If it was an internet booking, then surely there would have to be an explicit small print warning?

I've had a look to see if I can find such a fare / issue currently, and I can't ... I'm pretty sure it WAS there at some point in the Ts and Cs  - but I suspect that it might have been a rather poor marketing thing to do to people, and other ways have been found to adjust the fares to make it not worthwhile.    I was able to find 2 people + car for 10 pounds each way, Dover / Calais, for later this month at horrid hours ... try for foot passengers and it says that foot passengers aren't taken after 7 p.m.


"Safety" is a great way to explain it - I suspect what they mean is that they no longer choose to provide a safe way for foot passengers to get on and off the boat in the evening.

Is that Dover/Calais? Bummer if it is as a day out in Calais is very much shortened if one has to be back by 7pm. Just about the time one sits down to supper outside in the summer.

You mention connection Bilbao to santander.

Brittany ferries operate Bilbao to portsmouth as well. They don't let footies book online though for Bilbao to portsmouth so a call to their booking office in plymouth is required.

Why on earth not?

To do with the capacity of ship, it can take a lot more vehicles than passengers and there is more money in vehicle bookings. A vast majority of people wouldn't bother calling..


Talking of the clause earlier mentioned here is an example attached relating to the brittany ferries ^12.50 pp 24 hour return offer.

On the small print, I think that the earlier paragraph is the one that covers it - that itineraries are only valid starting in the country that they're booked in. I would've thought that people with holiday homes must fall foul of this regularly.

Meanwhile, on the subject of foot passengers on ferries, Dover/Calais aren't working hard enough. On overnight runs (OK, Dover-Calais isn't) as a foot passenger, I've been taken on and off the ship on a minibus on several occasions. Most recently when travelling from Belfast to Birkenhead. First time was Dublin - Birkenhead, where it turned out that the minibus was also tasked with leading the cars onto the ship.

Downside about the minibus is that they have to empty the car deck (or at least some of it) before the arrival port's minibus can come and collect you. But it's entertaining when you're the only foot passenger and the purser has to hand you over to the minibus driver.

That's in their general Ts & Cs, but if you look at day trips they have a different set (though some of the wording doesn't reflect that):

So where it says "Fares are based on travel dates and times and may require you to return to the UK within a specified period", the conditions for the actual booking will presumably say that with the specific duration or return date specified.

However, I don't think that is made as clear is it ought to be.

Yes ... but (alas) the boat from Bilbao only runs on certain days ... even less often than the train to Roscoff ... although more than the train from Piling.  I just thank goodnesss I no longer have to use a calendar to work out the last let to Melksham too - how we have come forward!

From the Irish Ferries web site ... http://www.irishferries.com/uk-en/offers/fares-offers-ireland-from-britain/

I've never looked at Irish ferries, but that is very expensive for a day trip. For day tripping Brittany ferries who are known for being expensive charge ^12.50 per person (min 2 people, sole traveller has to pay for two) plus ^25 for the car.