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There is a wide choice of ferry operators, taking cars and
foot passengers:
Dover-Calais with P&O
Dover to Calais with SeaFrance
Dover to Dunkerque with Norfolk
Line
Dover to Boulogne with Speedferries
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1 The ferry companies usually
offer cheaper summer crossings if you book and pay for them before the preceding
Christmas.
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2 Also towards the end of the
year, ferry companies have begun to offer special deals where you pay in
advance for a number of return crossings at a cheap rate, to be used during
the following year, and then book the exact dates of travel later, as you
want to use them. Sign up on the companies’ websites for information letters,
and you will be told about them.
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3 If you are going over on a
drink-buying mission, to visit the Calais branch of a UK wine or beer company
such as Majestic (aka Wine
and Beer World) or Oddbins,
you may find that if you order enough bottles in advance the company will
offer you a free day-trip Channel crossing. Check this out before making your
own travel arrangements.
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Though
the trains of both travel through the Channel Tunnel, Eurostar and Eurotunnel are two
quite different forms of transport and start and finish their journeys at
different places
Eurostar, from London or Ashford, for
foot passengers
You travel as a foot passenger, by high-speed
train, from London-St Pancras to Calais-Fréthun (just a few trains a day stop
here) and to Lille-Europe. You can continue on this service to Paris or
Brussels.
If you would like to know what you
are passing, in the apparently featureless landscape of Northern France, click
here. (Much of the line is drawn in on the map pages of the
book.)
Eurotunnel, from Folkestone, for
vehicles with their passengers
You have to be travelling in a vehicle to use this service, which makes the
short journey through the tunnel from Folkestone to Calais-Coquelles in 36
minutes. Cars are driven onto a special train, and passengers can remain in
their vehicle for the entire journey.
(This makes it a good way to travel for those with mobility problems,
or for people travelling with pets.)
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your car over regularly for short (or long) breaks during the year, consider
the Eurotunnel special deal whereby you pay upfront for 10 single crossings
to use during the following 12 months at a cheap rate, and then book the exact
dates of travel later. You can buy these at any time of year, by signing up
as a “Frequent
Traveller” on the Eurotunnel website. Note that there are often
supplements to pay when you book, if you should want to travel at popular
times, such as from the UK in the morning, or from France in the
afternoon!
Note A Book an outward and return trip as two
separate “single” crossings. You can
change the date of a journey free of charge before you make the first part of
it; however if you have booked your journey as a return ticket, this
means that any amending must be done before you start the outward journey (in
other words, if you want to alter the date of the homeward part, you cannot
do it once you have set out on the outward journey). If you make your booking as two single
journeys, then you can amend the date of either.
Note B If
you plan a day-trip, it will be cheaper to book this through the
normal Eurotunnel channels, rather than to use one of your “Frequent Traveller” crossings.
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3 GETTING THERE BY AIR
You can fly from Lydd (Kent) and from Shoreham-by-Sea
(Sussex) to Le Touquet.
Otherwise the nearest airport to the north of France, with
flights from the UK, is Paris (Beauvais), or even farther away, Paris
(Roissy/Charles de Gaulle).
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4 ROUTE-PLANNING HELP
Mappy
Via Michelin
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1 Invest in a sat-nav!
I bought TomTom One Europe, from Amazon, which I have found excellent. Bizarrely, it does not come with a
protective cover, so I bought one here. (Always remove it from your car when
parking, though. As in the UK, these
gadgets are prime targets for thieves.)
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5 MOTORWAY INFORMATION
Here is a map from the Sanef website of the Northern
France motorway network
To buy a “beeper” to work the automatic toll barriers (meaning
you can use the “Liber-t” lanes – pronounced “lee-bair-tay” - marked with an
orange “t”,
and miss the queues, thoughout the French motorway system), there is
information on
this page of the Sanef website. You need to understand enough French, but
you can order a beeper from there, using your credit card (mine reached a UK
address within a week).
Work out the best position on your windscreen by holding it up against the
glass for the first few times, then stick the free carrier in place and you
can click it in for use during your journey, and tolls will be debited to
your UK credit card.
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1 Whenever you are issued with a new/updated credit card, be sure to contact
Sanef and give them the new details - otherwise your beeper will not work
next time you try and use it!
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2 Always remove the beeper from
the car when you leave it. It is
attractive to thieves, who can drive around France merrily clocking up tolls
on your credit card until you manage to block your Sanef account.
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