Rushing: it has its good points. After all, the shortest way between two points is a straight line, and, when you come to compare a tunnel and a ferry route, it tends to be the tunnel that’s the straighter of the two, wouldn’t you say?
After all, with a tunnel you just turn up, show your ticket, pass through the barrier, whizz into the big hole in the ground that clever engineers have built, and in no time at all you are in glorious sunshine on the other side (and if you are heading to the Continent too, don’t miss our guide on how to register a caravan for Europe).
No awkward ferry gangways to negotiate (a particular concern if you have a lengthy outfit), no being forced to leave your chosen caravan tow car for hours and wait while the ferry negotiates awkward harbours or strange tides – in fact, no disruption due to bad weather. Makes perfect sense!
Well, not entirely. I reckon that there are plenty of plus points to breaking your journey with a ferry crossing, rather than rushing through a noisy and busy tunnel.
These quickly become clear if you consider the sea crossing that is closest to home for many of us – the English Channel.
Head across this via LeShuttle, and yes, you will get there in less than an hour, and you can marvel at the technology as you drive onto the train, at least the first time you go. But that really is it as far as your journey goes. And when you get to the other end you are in the Pas de Calais – hands down the drabbest part of France (except possibly for Le Touquet) – and you are faced with a good three or four hours of towing before you even begin to get near those Vendée beaches, Loire castles and Dordogne fortified villages you might have been hoping to see.
Take a ferry further down la Manche – to Dieppe, Caen, Cherbourg, or either of the Breton ports – and you are more or less there when you arrive. Yes, the actual crossing may cost more, but factor in the extra fuel you will use driving north to Calais, and the extra aggravation you may face having to navigate the autoroutes in the Paris region, and you may find things work out fairly evenly.
In any case, judge your crossing right, get the right weather, and you may find you have added on a pleasant little mini cruise to the start or the end of your holiday.
This was certainly my experience last time I came back from St Malo to Portsmouth. I’d booked a day cabin, which I initially thought was perhaps a bit of an extravagance. But given the fraught journey up from La Rochelle the night before, and the early morning start, I was thankful to go back to bed for a couple of hours.
When I woke up, I thought for a moment we were almost arriving, but in fact we were only just passing the northernmost tip of the Cotentin Peninsula, with Cherbourg just in the distance. Yes, the ferry had taken that long to navigate the treacherous waters out of St Malo (not for nothing did the port gain a reputation in early modern times for being a corsair’s lair), but from then on we had a glorious crossing in brilliant sunshine all the way home.
As we approached the English coastline, there were even bits of my home country that looked spectacular. Swanage, for example – never been there, but now
I mean to go! In fact, it was only through remembering the message that was drilled into me on beach holidays as a kid – that all distances look nearer when you see them over water – that I stopped myself wanting to jump in and swim over there and then! (We were still an hour off the coast.)
Even on another less balmy afternoon sailing back to Newhaven a few years earlier, we may have been confined to barracks, but I had great fun whiling away some of the four hours listening to a party on the next table devise a game which essentially involved them having to remember all the best parts of the holiday they had just been on. (When are you going to get that, sitting in your own vehicle while being hurtled underground?)
OK, so not every ferry experience is so enjoyable. But they can be. So next time, when you are booking, if you want to get there in a flash, head for the tunnel. But for a more leisurely, civilised ponder, for me the ferry is still hard to beat.
Don’t miss our tips on what to look out for when choosing a tow car either.
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