Getting to the Poitou-Charente / Deux Sevre – Cheapest Routes
In the summer the long crossings that usually result in the shortest drives are usually expensive, in the winter you can often cross from Portsmouth to St Malo for with Brittany ferries for £80.
LD Lines used to be a cheap option on the Portsmouth to Le Havre and Newhaven to Dieppe routes but recently they seem to have increased their prices.
SeaFrance and P&O usually have cheap crossings from Dover to Calais in the Evenings. Never arrive at Calais without a ticket, as the SeaFrance / P&O price fixing agreement is still going strong. It’s best to stop at an internet café en route and book a SeaFrance crossing online; it should save you about £100 on the ticket office price.
Eurotunnel have off peak tickets for less than £50 when you book a few days in advance and they will usually let travel on the earlier peak rate crossings if you arrive early.
Norfolk Line are currently the lowest price cross channel ferry company, unfortunately they operate between Dover and Dunquirk which means a long drive down to the south west of France, if you’re planning on traveling by Autoroute then the Dunkirk crossings should work out the same distance as Calais for destinations on the west coast of France.
| MPG | 40 | |||
| PRICE PER LITRE | 1.11 | |||
| Port | Miles | Km | Gallons | Cost |
| St Malo | 198 | 318.58 | 4.95 | 21.98 |
| Caen | 267 | 429.6 | 6.68 | 29.64 |
| Le Havre | 249 | 400.64 | 6.23 | 27.64 |
| Dieppe | 282 | 453.74 | 7.05 | 31.3 |
| Calais | 377 | 606.59 | 9.43 | 41.85 |
| Dunkirk | 404 | 650.04 | 10.1 | 44.84 |
| Ostend | 433 | 696.7 | 10.83 | 48.06 |
| Santander | 436 | 701.52 | 10.9 | 48.4 |
| Bilbao | 374 | 601.77 | 9.35 | 41.51 |
| Airport | ||||
| Poitiers – Biard Airport | 23.7 | 38.13 | 0.59 | 2.63 |
| Limoges – Bellegarde Airport | 100 | 160.9 | 2.5 | 11.1 |
| La Rochelle – Île de Ré Airport | 54 | 86.89 | 1.35 | 5.99 |
| Cities | ||||
| Amsterdam | 572 | 920.35 | 14.3 | 63.49 |
| Paris | 233 | 374.9 | 5.83 | 25.86 |
| Bern | 443 | 712.79 | 11.08 | 49.17 |
| Milan | 608 | 978.27 | 15.2 | 67.49 |
| Marseilles | 477 | 767.49 | 11.93 | 52.95 |
| Madrid | 587 | 944.48 | 14.68 | 65.16 |
You can calculate the cheapest route to any destination in France by downloading this excel spreadsheet. Edit the cells in blue to reflect the latest ferry crossing prices. The spreadsheet does not include toll charges because it is all about finding the cheapest route! It would be pretty straightforward to add your own toll charge column to the spreadsheet.
Change the yellow cells so that they show the correct distance from each port to your destination. You can get this info from Google maps.
Change the green cells to the correct MPG, Fuel price per litre and actual running costs which can be found here.
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/advice/advice_rcosts_petrol_table.jsp