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GETTING TO AND FROM FRANCE

 

Until recently we had a small apartment in Le Grau d’Agde (near Cap d’Agde) in the south of France where we used to spend about 3-4 weeks sveral times each year – we no longer have the apartment but are buying a boat on a morring in Cap d’Agde instead, so we’ll still be travelling to France several times each year.

Bearing in mind that whenever we visit France for any length of time we take our two dogs (Westies) we’ve obviously been keen to ensure that the dogs enjoy the least stressful crossing and 600 mile journey by car south to the Med.

Living as we do in Dorset we’ve always sought to travel on the Western Channel crossings rather than trek to Dover or Folkestone, and we have been clients of Brittany Ferries for many years, long before we had our apartment, and long before the Pets Passport Scheme enabled us to take our dogs.  When the Pets Passport Scheme was introduced several years ago now our first thought was which crossing would be the best both for us and for the dogs, and it took us a while to work that out.

By definition, apart from the fast-craft,  all the western channel crossings by ferry are longer than the short-sea crossings from Kent, and we were concerned that leaving the dogs cooped up in the car for six or more hours during the day wasn’t a terribly good plan, so we hit on the idea of a night crossing when the dogs would normally be sound asleep anyway.

Our favourite channel crossing used to be the Brittany Ferries Portsmouth – St.Malo night service leaving Portsmouth around 8 o’clock in the evening in time for a pleasant meal in the excellent restaurant before a comfortable night’s sleep in our cabin, with a convenient arrival time  in  St.Malo around 8 o’clock  the following morning.  Although tempting, and great for my partner and I, we felt that the eleven hour  long crossing time would be more than the dogs could cope with, so we needed to find a shorter alternative.

Fortunately we were able to do just that and still travel with our favourite ferry operator, by taking advantage of the Brittany Ferries night service between Portsmouth and Caen (Ouistreham) which doesn’t leave Portsmouth until 11 o’clock in the evening  and arrives in Caen around about 7.00 am the following morning local time – in other words a crossing time of  only 7 hours, during which time the dogs would normally be asleep anyway.

So for the past several years we have used the Portsmouth – Caen night services both to and from France quite extensively, and  have consistently been very impressed by the service, and  so far as we can tell the dogs appear to have been happy with the service too!

The Brittany Ferries Portsmouth – Caen night services are operated mainly by either the “Mont St Michel” or the “Normandie”    

The  “Mont St Michel”  was built at the Van der Giessen de Noord shipyard in the Netherlands and has been operated by  Brittany Ferries since her introduction in 2002. The Mont St Michel was to have been called the Deauville or the Honfleur but this was thought to be too similar to Barfleur.

The internal layout of the Mont St Michel is based on the  Normandie, which also operates on the Portsmouth–Caen  route.

She is named after the world-famous  tiny island of Mont St Michel  (St Michael’s Mount) off the coast near Avranches ,  and she  offers passengers a host of features including more than 200 spacious cabins, over 400 reclining seats, a choice of restaurants, and facilities including bars, cinemas, a disco club and video gaming area designed for teenagers.

She can carry some  2,200 passengers and 800 cars, and she features a range of state-of-the-art navigation and safety management systems some of which I was able to see at first hand, when, as Station Manager of the NCI Lyme Bay Coastwatch station I was invited on to the bridge during one crossing – this ensures that not only is the “Mont St Michel”  one of the most comfortable channel cruise ferries afloat, she is  also one of the best equipped.

The “Normandie” , built in the early nineties is named after the French region of the same name, and is decorated in traditional Norman style and colours,  featuring excellent  on-board facilities for dining and shopping, some 220  comfortable cabins and over 400 reclining seats  and there’s live entertainment too.  She can carry over 2,000 passengers and 600 cars

 

Clive Edwards