Tag Archives: Brittany Ferries

A Toe in the Water

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It’s a return to travel writing in this week’s post…

Not literally- at least I hope not!

The ferry from Portsmouth, UK to Santander in northern Spain leaves sometime after 11pm; after the last, remaining motorhomes, lorries, cars and motorbikes have been fitted into the jigsaw slots in the ferry’s capacious hold. This boat is one of Brittany Ferries’ newest, boasting ingenious ramps and contraptions in order to accomodate as many vehicles as possible. Similarly, there is more cabin capacity than public area, although the bar/lounge, once we’ve managed to get loaded on, found our cabin and got there, is bursting with life, a roaring trade, with drinks and platters of charcuterie and cheese flying out like the end of the world is at hand. Once we’ve sat down with a drink ourselves, all the dreary waiting in queues, yawning, is forgotten.

I don’t sleep well on ferries. In fact, I don’t sleep well at all, these days, but after this first cabin night there’s no rush to get up. It’s a dinky 4-berth, which is lucky because neither of us is cabable of clambering up and down off a high bunk, especiallly in the dark. Next morning there’s a cafe queue for huge breakfasts, and since we’re not huge breakfasters we grab coffee and a pastry, then…what? We can walk around the boat for a look, which we do. We can look at the one, modest shop, which we do. We can go to the ‘reading room’, which we also do, although it isn’t as comfortable as it looks and not as warm as the other areas. We spend an hour or so then get another coffee.

We have lunch. We read, We take another tour. We resist the urge to drink the day away as some are doing. The views in the Bay of Biscay become, briefly interesting as we glide past Brittany, with the lighthouse at Finistere a feature. The afternoon becomes bright with sunlight and the skies clear, until the sun is a tangerine orb that sinks into the sea. We go to shower in the tiny ensuite inside our cabin then go for dinner.

I’m awake before the tannoy announces our imminent arrival to Santander. It’s 7.00am, so 1 hour before we must disembark, but there’s very little to do except wash, dress and pack. In the cafe some are scoffing down ‘full English’ breakfasts as if they’ll never eat an edible morsel again. Santander port begins to slide past then the boat slows and we’re docking. We’re called to the car decks and descend through the hoards to ours- which we’ve taken care to remember! [I’ve described in a long ago post how we failed to locate our van on the Sardinia ferry and were mortified to be the last remaining vehicle as well as confronted by scowling ferrymen].

It takes an age to unload everyone and we’re one of the last to trundle off the boat and on to Spanish shores, then out into the outskirts of town, driving south and west. This first part of our journey is mountainous [the Cantabrian Mountains] and it’s exciting to see snow caps. We stop at a convenient supermarket for supplies and the bright sun feels warm. The autovia is easy and quiet and we’re on our way to Burgos…

For fiction by me, Jane Deans, search for novels: The Conways at Earthsend and The Year of Familiar Strangers. Visit my website: janedeans.com

How we Roll-

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These days we cross the English Channel [our most trodden travel path] by taking the line of least resistance-and since we live a few miles from Poole that line is Brittany Ferries to Cherbourg, a four-hour crossing leaving at 8.30am.
Despite the proximity we know better than to hang about and we are sure to leave home by 7.00am. Once, inspired by Husband’s ‘It’s only half an hour away-we’ve got oodles of time-we don’t need to be there until five minutes before’, we arrived at the barrier just as the ferry was about to leave and winged it up the ramp with minutes to spare.
The ferry, the ‘Barfleur’ [named after a Normandy coastal town] is comfortable and familiar by now. We know that once on board there will be good coffee and fresh, buttery croissants as well as comfortable reclining couchettes in a quiet salon in the bowels of the ship. We know that we can mooch around the small boutique and peruse the eclectic array of merchandise both useful and otherwise. There will be WiFi and television news.
Mostly, these days the ship is peopled with retirees or young couples with pre-school children because since retirement we have the choice of avoiding school holidays. This time, however by setting off a little earlier we are beset by knots of excited, shrieking children who still have time for a quick taste of France before knuckling down to learning their tables. They gallop about the ship, throng around the games room, chase each other from the bar to the restaurant, use loud devices and shout to each other. I surprise myself by enjoying their excitement, which reminds me how I felt on early trips abroad when every experience was new.
A sulky boy wearing a onesie in a bear design makes several circuits past our table with his lecturing mother, prompting me to wonder what he has done and if his excitement got the better of him. A tiny, table-height toddler staggers about, chased by his doting father and shielded from protruding table corners by the various diners he is entertaining.
In the quiet zone I open my Kindle and continue reading Alan Bennett’s ‘Keep On Keeping On’, which is part diary/part memoir/part lecture in itself and a treasury of informative and amusing anecdotes. A couple of rows behind us two men slumber whilst between them a young boy plays on and with a mobile phone, the sound of which is just a little distracting-loud enough to hear but not enough to decipher. Husband, whose own hearing has been compromised during the last few years is immune to such irritations and dozes off easily.
We arrive to Cherbourg, disembark and set off-not tearing southwards as usual but this time meandering across the Cherbourg peninsula to the coastal town of Barfleur itself, where we have lunch and a wander around the curving harbour followed by drinking coffee. Then we continue a few miles on to St Vaast, another harbour town with a convenient aire for us to park up in.

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St Vaast is a delectable place; full of seafood cafes, narrow alleys lined with pretty seaside homes and beautiful gardens, boulangeries packed with luscious pastries, breads and tarts, a crowded marina and a working fishing harbour where sturdy mussel boats are tied up.

There are many, many West coast ports like this, with harbourside brasseries serving the freshest shellfish you can get. We take advantage and I am able to enjoy my favourite treat-a plate of fat oysters nestling on a bed of ice and tasting of the sea.

We stay 2 days despite the drizzly intervals and walk the coastal sea wall to see ‘La Hougue’, part of some anti-British defences of 1664. Then it’s time to move on.