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
