RosieinOz

Hi All!
Sorry about the typo in the title .... I think we NEED the ferry rather than swim......but do we need a booking?

My DH and I are spending 3 months in Europe, leaving Sydney Easter weekend. After leasing a car for 6 weeks from Paris and travelling through France, Italy (daughter on working Visa there),and Switzerland we have 3 days to travel from Interlaken to Calais. Can anyone help with a suggested route and places for short visits? We want to avoid Paris.
Also, do we need to book a ferry to Dover or can we just deliver the car and buy foot passenger tickets over the counter?
Any input is most appreciated...as usual.
thanyou
Rosie

GeoffHamer

Ferries leave Calais for Dover at least every hour. There is no need to book in advance for foot passengers. The ships don't take foot passengers at night and, if you're getting a train onwards from Dover, you need to allow plenty of time to get from the port to the station.
www.poferries.com
www.seafrance.co.uk

RosieinOz

ttt

ira

Hi R,

>We want to avoid Paris.

Is there a reason for that?

Are you heading for London? If so, you could take the eurostar from Calais.

flanneruk

Suggesting places to visit to someone I don't know sounds unhelpful.

But this is more or less what I'd do.

Meander to Besancon, then spend the night in Beaune. Old road past Nuits St Georges and Gevrey Chambertin (or, going south, Meursault) to Dijon, for great Flemish art, both in the Musee des Beaux Arts and some churches.

Up to Troyes, then follow (but don't necessarily take) the A26 more or less to Calais, stopping off at the very least to see Rheims, diverting to Epernay for the champagne, then stopping off again at Laon.

Actually, I'd stop following the A26 at St Quentin, heading across to Amiens, then through a selection of towns like Arras and Bethune with their wonderful (though after he unpleasantness of the 19teens, largely reconstructed) Flemish market squares.

But there are millions of minor variants. There's absolutely no reason to go anywhere near Paris: the road system is specifically designed to keep Britons headed for Calais away from Paris. Mrs F would do all this in a day.

flanneruk

PS:

If you do decide on the train from Calais to London (and it's amazingly quicker than all the faffing about with getting a bus from the ferry to the train at Dover), you're safer to book a seat in advance. There are only about four trains a day, and Eurostar is pretty good at yield management systems, so the trains are often fully booked and they don't allow standing passengers.

RosieinOz

Thanks everyone!
We want to see the cliffs of Dover and then spend the night in Canterbury before heading to London so we are doing the ferry and train. We have the time to take and we gather there is not much to see or do in Calais where we have to leave the lease car.
Thankyou again....do we need to book the ferry?
Rosie

GeoffHamer

The ferries carry between 1000 and 2000 passengers. There are sailings at least every hour. If you are travelling as a foot passenger, you can just buy a ticket for the next sailing. There is no need to book in advance.
Note that in Calais, there is a bus from the town centre and railway station to the ferry terminal, and passengers are taken by bus from the terminal to the ship. At Dover, there is a bus from the ship to the terminal, then another bus to the railway station. It's hard work if you have a lot of lugguge.

RosieinOz

Thanks Geoff!
We wil be fine. We will have two rollers cases and 2 day backpacks. We don't leave until Good Friday and this part of the trip isn't until May but we are just deciding what to book and when to wing it. We are both 51 and this is the adventure we never had in our 20's!! We decided we can always do coach tours when we retire! We've never been past NZ from Australia so It's Time!

Thanks again
Rosie