We drove down for quite a few years, financialy it never made sense, but we treated the journey as part of the holiday.
We initialy did the long drive down through France, I must admit to getting a bit bored of doing that, so we tried Brittany Ferries on the Pont Avon to Santander, that was the game changer. Santander is a brilliant city and the countyside and coast line in Cantabria took our breath away. We joined the Brittany Ferries "club", I forget the name, about £100 to join and then a similar figure each year to be a member, it was money well spent for the discounts it gave you.
We then planned where we would be going and staying on our trips down to GA, we loved Asturias and Galicia regions, its a million miles away from The Costas, completely different, we likened a lot of it to Switzerland in the sun. Amazing roads if you enjoy driving, superb scenery, amazing food....if you havnt been I can recomend it.
We also had trips where we spent time in Barcelona, Madrid, Burgos, Salamanca......the journeys back and forth to Santander and Bilbao, another brilliant place, were brilliant.
The only bad part of the ferry is their ability to cope with the swells you often experience in the Bay of Biscay....they dont cope with it too well.
After our first few crossings we were rather blase about it....whats all this tosh that people talk about the Bay of Biscay, we'd been sat out on deck in the sun, sea like a mill pond in mid November....we then had a few crossings from hell.
Massive waves, spray higher than the 10th deck, walking around well nigh impossible....your either walking up a 1in 4 gradient or walking down one....the only place you feel safe is lying on you bed, but thats rather like lying on a trampoline with someone with their legs astride you jumping up and down....the sounds of bangs and crashes coming from below decks and car alarms, some folk dont follow rules and turn them off, ringing away.....at that point you get off you say never again!!
But a little bit like when you say you'll never fly with Ryanair again you do ;-) Well I do.
Stay safe everyone
John
