driving to spain

hi everyone

this is my first posting on EOS

I live in nottingham  and we bought an apartment on the polaris world resort [ hacienda riquelme] in Sucina ,murcia approx 4yrs ago.We love the resort,surrounding area and costa calida coast line,we try to get there as much as poss,mainly long weekends

throughout the year,flying with RyanAir and renting a car at the airport

This is my dilema, is it cheaper to drive to Murcia [diesel ] or keep paying extortionate flight prices, and the ever increasing car hire

prices during the summer season.

We hope to go for 3wks next summer,but 3wks car hire in peak season +flights  is starting to makea once cheap holiday very expensive, so i would appreciate any help or information

many thanks

surg

Its very true, it does get a little expensive.

We drive down every year for this reason. If you keep clear of the tolls, the fuel cost is around €150, (take the tolls and you will finish paying out another €130.)driving down through France and to the Costa Balanca. The cheapest channel crossing is the tunnel using your Tesco points, (costs nothing) Failing that LD Lines now run a quick ferry to Boulogne for about £30. If you stop overnight in France, hotels cost fom around €30 per room. So around £240 for the trip down. You then have your car with you so take off the car hire and it always works out cheaper and more convenient.

Hi

Just trying to confirm your working out. If it is €150 for fuel and €30 for hotel where does £240 come from?

Sorry if its me being a bit thick - we were thinking of driving this year and looked at various quotes but found they varied quite a lot. Looking at your figures am I right in thinking that if you use tesco points for free crossing and avoid the tolls then the return journey would cost about €360.  Also how long does your journey take?

Will appreciate any info on this as we really fancy the drive.

Thanks

Mandy.

If you fancy the drive, just do it. Flying has become such a miserable experience these days, that cost is only a secondary consideration in my opinion.

We have a chrysler grand voyager and drive down every summer and also use tesco clubcard points to get the free crosing on the tunnel we always use the route down the east coast via lyon as wife doesn't like paris and use the tolls all the way down including fuel and tolls it is nearly always around £500 return and as the daughters are still in school the air fares are always way expensive.

For france we have one of the gadgets that allow you to go through the automatic tolls without paying and the bill is always claimed at he end of the month that you travel

any rough idea how far you can get down thru France in one day before you start seeing double. Are hotels/rooms easy to find,and whats a gallon of fuel cost nowdays in France?

Hi,

We take the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to LeHavre. The advantages are that you land at 0700 and so have a full day driving and you avoid Paris.

We drive down through France to Pau where we spend the night. We do not use toll roads (except around cities) and split the driving 70/30.

Also we try to travel on a Saturday or Sunday - the roads are much quieter and far fewer lorries about!

Jo

Hi

We drove to Spain last year and found this site very helpful

http://www.viamichelin.com it will give you estimated cost and various routes, Hotels on route.

Toll roads in France are just never ending miles and miles of straight dual carriage ways,

ok if you want to get through France quick.

The roads in Spain are not as good but the scenery is a lot better.

Fuel in France is a little bit more than UK but Spain is cheaper.

It's well worth it for the experience.

We recommend using sat nav.

surg depending on if you both drive then in one day you can get down to about a couple of hours from the spanish border

Has anyone done the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry route and then driven down thru Spain?  We are thinking of doing this in December.  Would be interested to hear of any experiences!

Thanks Conrad & DJS for your input, the web sites a great help.I didnt know France had so many toll roads.In that case ,if paying for the use of them,are they a dam site better and less congested than our roads?   cheers surg.

I drove down to Calpe, through France, sharing the driving with a friend, in a loaded Transit earlier this year

Admittedly we were trying to rush, but we found the experience very hard and long and i have personally vowed never to do it again!  ... Although, as the months have passed, it doesn't seem so bad now as it did then

Next time i will go the Portsmouth / Bilbao route as this seems far less arduous.

The long ferry journey to Spain seemed alot more expensive when we booked the Dover/Calais ferry,  but when we costed the fuel and tolls (lots+expensive) that France had cost us, it seemed the ferry option to Spain was not so expensive after all.  And I am guessing far more pleasant and far less stressful.

surg

My wife and I have done the Plymouth to Santander route acouple of times (on motorbike). We slept through the night and arrived refreshed in Spain in the morning. Quite expensive, but a lovely ride through Spain.

At least you can stop overnight in the service areas in france without having to pay an arm and a leg to do so

Surg.

In answer to your question about how crowded the toll roads are, you need not worry. Toll roads do not get conjested the same as we know, they are free flowing nearly all the time and the amount of traffic is very small in comprison to ours. The non toll roads are also not conjested , and even around the towns where they are the busiest we have never had a problem with taffic jams.

Thanks for the info Jencoo, i,m pretty much sure i,ll be driving to Spain this coming year.Happy days Surg

Hope this doesn't sound too silly, but have you considered buying a cheap 2nd hand Spanish car, and using that when you get to your property.  Even with a 3 week holiday, you spend so much time on the road that you tend to lose the object of why you come here (unless you enjoy the drive down and back).  I agree that the cost of hiring is prohibitively expensive but would the purchase as above not be a better long term proposition?  Having said this, I suppose you then have to add the cost of getting to / from the airport to your residence on each occasion.  Just a thought!!

Regards

I have done Portsmouth-Bilbao a few times and although a bit pricey it is well worth it.  From Bilbao I take the route towards Logrono then on to Zaragoza.  From there take the new dual carriageway that opened last year all the way to Valencia and then the coastal motorway to Benidorm, or wherever you are staying.  The roads are good with plenty of petrol sations either on the main road or just off.  The tolls are about 35 Euros.  Bilbao to Benidorm is 484 miles.

 Hi, 

Jimbofinn, please tell me where one can find a good value Spanish car as I have just failed! I would park at Alicante Airport, seems to be around 300 Euros for a years parking.

Redninja, How long did it take you to drive from Bilbao to Benidorm? Sounds as if the journey might be straight forward? Any one seen anywhere that offers good fares from the UK to Spain by boat? Thanks

Thanks for the inputs on the Portsmouth to Bilbao route.

RedNinja, we were thinking of driving from Bilbao to Madrib and then down to Murcia and onwards.  Is your suggested route better do you think?

How long did it take you going your way?