St Julien des Landes to Caen Ferry

[jo3]

We are taking our first trip overseas at the end of July, sailing Portsmouth to St Malo. We will be sailing back from Caen at 23.30 on a Friday night.

Internet route planners suggest a journey time of around 4 and half hours but I'm guesing this is optomisitic, particularly taking in rush hour on a Friday.

I was thinking about leaving the site at 4pm ish as ideally I'd like to be at the port for 22.00.

Does this sound sensible to seasoned travellers?

 

[NRT1]

Hi Jo,

I am sure that someone will be along soon who has done the journey, but I am taking the same route next month and have just printed off from via-michelin a route map which states the journey is 253 miles. I always estimate an average of 50mph towing and I am not usually far out so that looks like about 5 hours driving plus any stops. We met a couple at a campsite near Les Sables d'Olonnes a couple of years ago who said it was about that.

Neil

 

[PaulN]

We stayed at Garangoire in 2006, travelling the route you plan. On our return journey (up to Nantes, Rennes, Avranche and Caen) we had two major hold-ups. We spent about 40 minutes travelling around Nantes - we got there at Rush Hour - and then over a hour on the Autoroute North of Rennes for a Major accident that left only the Hard Shoulder open. We had left at 3pm and got to the Ferry about 30 mins before the last check in time.

My advice, therefore, is to leave yourself plenty of time on top of any of the routing software you use. Like Neil on long journeys in France I estimate 50mph average (PLUS stops), but the shorter the Journey the closer to 40 it gets. ALso its important to say that this is when using exclusively Autoroute/Dual Carriageway. If you have to use normal roads then this falls significantly