Driving to south of Spain.

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croman

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Has anyone driven via ferry to the south of Spain? What is the best way across to England and on to France or France direct and then onwards? How long would it take say to Cartegana on Costa Calida?
 
Have you considered going from Plymouth to Santander? Cut out France altogether. I know from their website that Stena link up with Brittany Ferries to do that route via Landbridge. I've never travelled with them myself, however. Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk/) tells me it would be about 850km/9 hours from Santander to Cartagena (Assume that's where you meant?). Otherwise, driving time depends on where you start from... :)
 
I will have a look at Plymouth to Santander. Yes I do mean to Cartagena and of course should have given my starting point which is Celbridge -Kildare. I would not mind taking a more relaxed route through Spain and cut out France so Santander could be an interesting option, thanks.
 
Whatever you decide to do dont forget to take into account Motorway Tolls and Petrol prices (I recommend using the route planner on www.viamichelin.com as you can factor these in - Especially in France Motorway tolls can add up quite a bit)

Personally I'd fly at least some of the way and rent a car - it would probably be cheaper overall.

Edited to add - Out of interest viamichelin says for a Family Car to drive from Cherbourg to Cartagena - with paying an average of €1.30/l for petrol the total cost for the return trip (driving all the way through on Motorways) is €530 (€440 in petrol and €90 in tolls)
 
EvilDoctorK said:
Personally I'd fly at least some of the way and rent a car - it would probably be cheaper overall.
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Having once driven Cherbourg/Cádiz return in an Irish car (w/o air conditioning, and with kids! :eek:), I'd second this.

It will almost certainly cost you less than the ferry + motoring expenses, and your steering wheel will be on the right (i.e. left) side of the car.
Overtaking, pulling out into traffic or entering a motorway from a slip road can be very stressful experiences otherwise.
 
Hi I drove to the costa del sol in a van before .Dont go france and down youll be wrecked .I got ferry from England to north spain Bilbo and then drove on , no bother plus the ferry was a great crack .Theirs no problem finding info on ferrys and getin a rout planner is easy . Hope it works out for you ,dont forget it should be fun .
 
i know it's different geography but we drove across europe this summer - bruge, cologne, munich, berlin & paris. got the ferry to roscoff. i'd do it again in an instant. was an amazing holiday...anyway...my one piece of advice - get a good GPS, make sure it has all the 2008 european maps and you can't go wrong. we are guided to perfection by ours - it'll be the best money you'll have spent.

another few tips - petrol across europe is very expensive (circa €1.40 a litre) so be careful. also the tolls in france are horrifically expensive. that saying, the worst journey of our whole trip was getting back off the boat and driving back to dublin. after being across europe, it really hit home how brutal our roads/general infrastructure/drivers really are.

have an amazing time.
 
I think it depends how much driving you want to do. I did it once from Calais to the Costa Blanca. Once you get South of Paris it is a lovely drive through some magnificent scenery especially around Lyon and the Pyrenees. We didn't drive late in to the evening only till about 5pm. and had 2 overnight stops.

The Motorways weren't very busy, I think this is as has already said due to the cost of the tolls. However there are other free motorways that run more or less parallel with the tolls roads but not as uncongested as the tolls roads.

If you want to get to your destination quickly then I would agree with the other posts about the ferry to Spain.
 
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