P&O Ferries has announced that it is to discontinue its Portsmouth to Bilbao route from after 27 September 2010.
The Spanish terminal is at Santurtzi about 10 miles from the city on the edge of the Basque country. For francophiles the advantage is that Bilbao is less than 2 hours from the French border and destinations such as Biarritz and Bayonne, and as such offers a much more convenient journey to the Pyrenees than driving all the way from the Engish Channel, Normandy or Brittany. By comparison Biarritz is more than 660 miles from Calais, over 500 miles from Caen, Le Havre and Cherbourg and 450 miles from St Malo. By the time you factor in the cost of autoroute tolls and overnight accommodation the higher cost of the 35-hour crossing (or cruise).
After September 2010 the only alternative will be the Brittany Ferries Service to Santander which is about an hour further west than Bilbao.
I keep hoping that someone would open a ferry service from UK to Bordeaux which would be an ideal entry point for the whole of SouthWest France.
