Travel to Santander and drive back

[Robbins]

Hello I am in the early stages of planning a ferry to Santander or Bilbao and then drive back to Roscoff for the ferry back to Plymounth for next year. Does anyone have any advice for this trip on places to stop on the way back or places to avoid. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[bjphillips]

I dont where you intend going to once you arrive in Santander but I found that a nicer city than Bilbao myself.Before I retired & bought the motorhome we had been down to Santander from Plymouth with our motorbike about 7 times.The range of mountains that stretches along that coast has many good quality roads going thro them inland,with some very interesting places to see as well as being very picturesque routes.Travelling West along the coast you have San Vincent a modern town, Llanes a very old town both nice places to spend time.Further on theres Ribadesella a lovely little town.A bit of a climb into the mountains takes you to Coverdonga (I think thats how its spelt) I believe thats where the Monestry place is really worth visiting.We've ridden thro most of the passes at different times & then made our way back to the French border & up thro France avoiding the motorways the paralel routes are good roads anyway & much more interesting, NO toll fees.Enjoy your trip (lol)

[robin]

The voyage across the Bay of Biscay can challenge the most stable of stomachs. Personally, I prefer the short sea crossing and the drive as you don't save anything in terms of time or cost (even taking account of autoroute tolls) :-|

[mansell]

I AGREE DONT SAVE A PENNY, AND WHEN YOU HAVE SEEN ONE LOT OF SEA YOU HAVE SEEN IT ALL. AND YES THE BAY IS SOMETHING ELSE UNLESS YOU ARE LUCKY. KEEP TRYING

[twooks]

we have done the trip to Bilbao twice now, and no problems! Didn't see much wildlife tho. We did the version you are talking about last year and followed the french coast back to Zeebrugge to get the Hull ferry -[tesco vouchers, and we live near Hull]. We had a great time and saw a lot more of France [and even Spain] than we would have done using the shorter crossings. Totally detest the haul down to the south coast, although Portsmouth is better than Dover, so will be sticking to the Hull routes in future. We timed last years trip in May June, to pick up the better weather - ie cooler in the south and improving as we came north, the weather was excellent throughout; had thought about coming back thro France to the east of Paris, but there was threat of thunderstorms so we changed our minds - pity but .. .. .. .. That area of Spain is known as the Green coast, that's because it rains! The French coast to the Gironde is one long surfer beach, with lakes and forests inland, we found some nice quiet sites and some that were like butlins! and avoided the vendee like the plague. Don't plan too rigidly, go with the weather and the mood, but allow plenty of time, we had nearly 4 weeks and could have done with 6 [at least (lol) ]

[Vixters other half]

Did the same trip many years ago with V8 Land Rover towing twin axle van. Bloody expensive both ways !! Ferry crossing boring and expensive as you have to book cabin and are a captive audience for whatevers on board. Return trip throgh France to Cherbourg more interesting but it was costing me 25p a minute in fuel! Keep off the auto routes and drive both ways is my answer. You can always stop when you want and nearly all French towns and some villages will have parking facilities for overnight stops VoH

[twooks]

VoH - don't understand the logic of your claim re expense, how is it costing you so much by road.

[robin]

1 mile per minute(?), 25p per minute - £3.00 per gallon(?) = 12 mile per gallon. V8 (petrol) Land Rover - Big Caravan - makes sense to me. (?) (?)

[bjphillips]

What a lot of windbags some people are,I've made the Santander crossing about 10 or 11 times going both ways on some of them & only had a bad crossing once that I was told was a force 7/8.I think that September is supposed to be the more choppy time so avoid that if possible. We did have a force 10 crossing from Cherberg to Southampton in the sixtys,should have been a 6 hour trip but actually took from 6pm until 9am the following morning due to the horrendous conditions.That i think was about 1964,anyone on that ? :D

[johnsandywhite]

B-) I have to agree. We made the journey many times before we bought an RV. Only one BAD crossing (Force 8 8-) ) was in a November. The best was Also in a November on our second outward journey to Santander. It was like a mill pond on a really calm day. ;-)

[twooks]

only bad crossings I've had have been from Dover / Folkestone :D Norfolkline one earlier this year was delayed by about 2 1/2 hours. Don't ya just love the way people dive into big fryup full English breakfast, then provide a free rainbow display of colours across their faces? >:-) go for it Robbins, you may not get the chance again, and keep clear of the autoroutes, fill up in Spain, cheaper than France. San Sebastian is nice, Biarritz, also particularly liked la Rochelle, Le Croisic, and a brilliant [if large] site at Le Pouldhu. Can't go wrong really - (lol) Don't forget your ACSI Camping Card if you're going off season. B-)