By
FERRY
Since P & O withdrew from the majority of its GB - France routes it has left a situation on some crossings where Brittany Ferries is now in fact in a monopoly or near monopoly situation. This can only be bad news for the direction of prices on those routes and it is to be hoped that in time some competition will be forthcoming. In the meantime, once you have purchased your house in France, Brittany do offer a facility called the Property Owners Travel Club costing around £55 a year which offers some useful discounts on fares. If you are going to travel to France frequently you can save the £55 in a very short space of time.
All the major sea crossings to France from the UK and Ireland are listed In the table below.
FERRY COMPANY | GB & EIRE PORT | FRANCE PORT | WEBSITE |
| Brittany Ferries | Cork | Roscoff | brittany-ferries.co.uk |
| Norfolk Line | Dover | Dunkerque | norfolkline.com |
| SpeedFerries | Dover | Boulogne | speedferries.com |
| P & O Ferries Seafrance |
Dover | Caleigh | poferries.com seafrance.com |
| LD
Lines Transmanche Ferries |
Newhaven | Le Havre | ldlines.co.uk transmancheferries.co.uk |
| LD
Lines Transmanche Ferries |
Newhaven | Dieppe | |
| Brittany Ferries | Plymouth | Roscoff | |
| Brittany
Ferries Condor Ferries |
Poole | Cherbourg | condorferries.co.uk |
| LD
Lines Transmanche Ferries |
Portsmouth | Le Havre | |
| Brittany Ferries | Portsmouth | Caen (Ouistrieme) | |
| Brittany
Ferries Condor Ferries |
Portsmouth | Cherbourg | |
| Brittany
Ferries Condor Ferries |
Portsmouth | St Malo | |
| Irish
Ferries Celtic Link Ferries | Rosslare | Cherbourg | irishferries.com celticlinkferries.com |
| Irish Ferries | Rosslare | Roscoff | |
| Condor Ferries | Weymouth | Cherbourg | |
| Condor Ferries | Weymouth | St Malo |
BY
RAIL
If you're looking to buy in North East France, the alternative
to using a ferry to get yourself and your car to France is Eurotunnel:
Eurotunnel.com
If you're
looking further afield and are going to hire a car in the region of
France that you are interested in, one alternative to flying is to
travel by high speed train with Eurostar.com
The
high speed network across France has been undergoing a major expansion
and it is now possible to book through Eurostar to link up with these
new routes to destinations all over France. We took advantage of this
service recently to travel to Marseilles and, if memory serves me
right, it took about 6-1/2 hrs from London to Marseilles. The UK leg of
the journey time has become shorter as they have finally opened the
high speed track from London to Folkstone. You can find a map of all
the cities you can get to by high speed trains at the English version
of the site at: tgv.co.uk
You can rest assured that the high speed trains used on these routes will be a bit more up to date than the train I've pictured on the left.
By Air
- Poitiers
- Rennes
- Rodez
- Strasbourg
- Toulon
- Toulouse
- Tour
- Marseilles
- Montpellier
- Nantes
- Nice
- Nimes
- Orly
- Paris
- Pau
- Perpignan
- Chambery
- Carcassonne
- Dinard
- Grenoble
- La Rochelle
- Le Havre
- Lorrient
- Le Touquet
- Lyon
- Angers
- Avignon
- Bastia (Corsica)
- Beauvais
- Bergerac
- Biaritz
- Bordeaux
- Brest
- Caen
With the growth of no frills airlines and the opening up of small regional airports in the UK and France to commercial flights, flying conveniently and cheaply to different regions of France has never been easier.
A current list of commercial airport destinations in France is shown on the right:
