Portsmouth to Spain direct in October.

[Rioja]

I'm contemplating taking a direct ferry to Spain late September until mid to late October. The idea being to stay in the North to Middle of Spain.

Has anyone had any experience at this time of year. What sort of weather might I expect ? Any places to visit, campsites etc.

What is the ferry trip like / is it worth the money or is it a better bet travelling to the South of France from a cost and weather prospective ?

As you are on board the ferry for two nights does it tend to be expensive for food and drink ?

As you can see I'm starting with an empty travel plan so any tips and recommendations gladly received.

cheers Dave

 

[Jaydug]

I have been travelling to southern Spain for around sixteen winters - usually going in mid-November and returning in March. For three of those years from 1995 onwards, I travelled on Pride of Bilbao. Eventually I decided that I preferred to drive down through France. Overland costwise - Dover to Calais

 

[Rioja]

Thanks for the reply John. The ferry in September to Bilbao can be had for as "little" as

 

[Jaydug]

We were in Spain over the past winter and came home in mid-March. We were pleasantly surprised at how little prices had gone up from the previous year. Our site fees, for instance, were the same as the previous year, as was the charge for electricity. Our bill for eating out was very much the same as in past years. Of course the crunch came when withdrawing cash from the ATM. During 2007/08 winter 300 Euros were debited at

 

[RayS]

I've never used the ferry to Spain as i enjoy the drive down through France and back.

Depending on which outbound ferry you take - remembering that brittany does "free" caravans on some sailings for CC members, suggest the following stops.

From a mid-day ferry try Pontorsan near St Michels Mount. Then down to Pons (Moulin de Augverne) then St jean de Luz (Las Rouletta) and then into ~Spain. You may well be able to miss out one of these depending on time of day of the ferry.

Another very nice and quiet site is Lou Bascou under Dax in CC Europe 1 - from there you could get into northern Spain fairly easily in one go.

 

[Olly]

One consideration involving the Ferry is that it can be quite rough crossing the Bay of Biscay in a gale and statistically there's a high probability of such gales around the Autumn Equinox.

When's the Autumn Equinox? September 20th.

Just a thought.

Olly.

 

[Rioja]

Thanks Olly. Good point !!!!