Paris, Giverney, Caen, Calais
 

I'll be staying in Paris for 6 days arriving Sept. 9th. There are 3 of us. We will be renting a car, driving to Giverney, Caen, then trying to catch a passenger ferry at Calais, and meeting another person at Heathrow on the 16th. We need suggestions for car rental, hotels and ferry transport, or the best way to get to London from Calais.

Eurostar train to London . . . much faster than the ferry to Dover.

From St Pancras you can take the tube directly to LHR.

Will you be staying in Paris for 6 days (starting on the 9th and leaving on the 15th/16th) and then trying to see Giverny, Caen and then take a ferry from Calais to England/Heathrow all on the same day? You need to elaborate on your plans.

Oh - I didn't even notice the dates. If you are counting the 9th then your 6th day is the 14th, leaving you only 1.5 days to do Giverny, Caen, travel to London and get out to LHR. Not really doable . . . .

Take sensible care in Calais.

I'd drop Caen as an outlier, there are some nice places to pull-over/visit in the Pas de Calais if you need an extra meal stop. Arras, for example, has two massive old market squares (they look great even if they were flattened by German guns in WW1) and it is possible to visit parts of the Allies' command and control centre down in the sub-basements.

Ferries, there are various. http://www.aferry.co.uk/ferry-to-france-ferries-uk.htm and are time dependant (some fast, some slow, some times will not suit etc). To drive to LHR, just pick up a car at Dover Ferry port but do it through auto-europe http://www.auto-europe.co.uk/go/car-hire-dover/ who act an agent and sort out things that go wrong.

Like jansj I'd take the train into London and I do holidays in this area a fair bit.

The arguement for driving would be about overall cost (numbers in car etc) and the chance to drive the UK motorway system before you hit the M25 and the M25 near LHR (extra tricky). If you and the extra person are going on with the car and will use the Motorway system a bit more then the Dover start might be the right thing to do.

Reading back, while Sept 9 is out of the high holiday season, you'll still find the ferries reasonably busy and of course there are so many that you don't need to book on an exact one, you just turn up. On some of the ferries you will find there can be an extra fee for passengers who want to use an exclusive business class area, while the trip is short, these are normally very good value, you get papers, a very clean place to sit and often the odd sandwich and soft drink for free to rest away from the hurly burly of school kids and day trippers use the rest of the ship.

>>Reading back, while Sept 9 is out of the high holiday season, you'll still find the ferries reasonably busy . . .<<

As I read it they arrive in Paris on the 9th and aren't looking to take the ferry til the 16th (or maybe the 15th)

Not a good idea at all IMO

I'm arriving from Scotland in Paris early on the 9th of Sept, playing in Paris 4 full days, leaving early the 14th to head for Giverney, with the ultimate destination London Heath Row on the 16th to meet another person at 10:40AM. I want to rent a car to drive to Giverney. Then depending on time constraints, explore the Normandy area - battlefields, beach, WWII historical sites. Is this realistic? Or should we just head for London? Can you rent a car in Paris and turn it in in England? Just logistical questions. Thanks for your feedback.

I guess the drop off charges would be awful if you rent a car in Paris and drop it in London.
Plus the fact that the guys in London would not be overly pleased with a car with the steeringwheel in the correct place (left) since you all British stubbornly continue to drive on the wrong side of the road.

I think you need to take a map, pin all your moves, take care of the time it takes to go from each palce to the others and factor in time to look for your way, for your hotel etc. Then up to you to decide if it is doable. Some people will say no, but it is your trip, and some people like it crammed.

Mvg.

>>Can you rent a car in Paris and turn it in in England? <<

Possible I suppose - some agency must allow ir. But it would be enormously expensive, and not easy for you driving a left hand drive car in the UK. Just not a sensible idea.

If you leave Paris on the 14th and have to be at LHR in the morning of the 16th . . . something has to give. You will have half a day on the 14th and about 3/4 of a day on the 15th for Giverny and Normandy.

Since you have to be at LHR the morning of the 16th you really should head to England buy the evening of the 15th. You could catch the very first Eurostar out of Lille which reaches St Pancras at about 09:00 but you'd have to have your rental car returned in Lille and checked in for the Eurostar before 8AM.

BUT -- since it isn't an actual 'destinations', why are you meeting up at LHR? To catch a flight out? Or to meet someone arriving and then driving somewhere else? Or meeting someone arriving and going into London to stay? Or?

We are meeting another person in LHR coming in from another country, then driving on to explore Cornwall for a week. It looks a little too ambitious to drive but it seems there's a ferry that goes out of Ouistreham (near Caen) to Portsmouth, then a train to London. We may look into that route as an option.

I appreciate all the feedback. A train or ferry looks like a good option. Thank you.

Certainly the Ouistreham ferry is good and certainly don't take a French car into UK and leave it (will cost you plus the ferry costs for a car just don't work out).

From memory the Ouistreham ferry is either has four timings, including overnight (the overnight cabins cost a bit but you have to sleep some time). There also used to be a Le Havre to Portsmouth. Le Havre is easy to get to from Honfleur (big bridge). You do need to book cabins early if you are doing the overnight though as a foot passenger I doubt booking is required.

Portsmouth drive up to LHR is relatively straight forward.

>>Portsmouth drive up to LHR is relatively straight forward.<<

Will take about 2.5 - 3 hours (when factoring in getting the rental car sorted) so you'd probably have to sail the afternoon before to arrive when the rental agencies in Portsmouth are open.