To celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary recently, we went for a long weekend across the channel to our favourite country France. K and I love France, we really do. And we love the french countryside, not so much of crowded Paris.
K planned this trip and decided that we should try taking the ferry over with our car, so we can drive around in the convenience of our own car. Thing is, the ferry trip from Portsmouth to Saint Malo in Brittany takes 10h which is a very long time compared to the plane. However his enthusiasm for the ferry rubbed off me and so we decided to give it a go. Sweet hubby also attempted to make a few restaurant bookings in french lol.. the only French sentence he knows is "do you speak English?" (bless him) and he actually managed to get us booked in at a few places beforehand. Very impressive! My french however, has gone from rusty to dormant; in fact I struggled to dig out my vocabulary in this trip. Thankfully most people speak English anyway so it was fine. The only small problem we had was interpreting the french menus but we scraped through, either through me guessing the main words like chicken, salmon, fish or vegetables.. or getting the poor waiter to translate it for us.
We drove more than 2h from our home to Portsmouth (I know, thinking about it, if we had taken a flight we'd be in France by then haha). From the port it was a very easy check in. We drove up to the customs booth and then to the security booth where they did a thorough check on our car before ushering us to follow a certain road which leads us into the ferry. Once we parked the car, we had to unload whatever we needed for our journey. Thereafter we could not get access into the carpark. As it was an overnight journey, K booked us a cabin to allow us to rest for the night before arriving in St Malo at 7.45am the next morning.
We got onto the ship which was pretty big and stable so you don't really feel the waves. I say that, but when we tried to sleep we did feel it and I didn't sleep very well if I be honest. That aside the cruise ship itself was pretty good in terms of facilities. There was a restaurant on board and a self-serve cheaper option. There was even a piano bar for you to have a drink or two; a club if you want to party on thru the night; two cinemas to watch movies (pretty current) and duty free shops. There was even a nail spa for you to do your nails. Pretty self-sufficient and entertaining right?
Being the party animals that we were, we visited the club at 1030pm, sat and listened to the live band. Barely a song later, we decided it was bedtime!
At 630am a soft tune was played in our cabin which signalled our morning call. Soon an announcement was made, in both French and English, to let us know we were arriving in St Malo in an hour's time. Rise and shine, time to grab a croissant and a cup of tea/coffee for breakfast.
Sunlight was streaming in by the time we left our cabin, and people were busy shuffling about, getting breakfast and also getting ready by packing up their bags.
Soon we received the signal that we could go to our cars. The ferry soon docked and cars were allowed to drive out one by one. We drove towards the French customs officer, showed him our passports from the comfort of our car, and drove off. Right into France. With St Malo in the distance, we decided to pay an early visit that morning. K kept raving about how convenient this was, without any airport fuss.. which is true I guess.
We were in St Malo just over four years ago, and that particular trip we planned our trip around Mont St Michel which is towards the east of where St Malo is. We visited St Malo for half a day, and I remember it was the Easter break and I was still wearing my puffy jacket.
St Malo at 8am was very quiet with very little activity in the streets. Shops were still closed save a few bakeries and we could smell whiffs of fresh croissants and bread coming out of these shops. K immediately regretted that breakfast he bought on the ferry. It was nice to walk around whilst the town was still sleeping.
More pictures to come.. stay tuned
K planned this trip and decided that we should try taking the ferry over with our car, so we can drive around in the convenience of our own car. Thing is, the ferry trip from Portsmouth to Saint Malo in Brittany takes 10h which is a very long time compared to the plane. However his enthusiasm for the ferry rubbed off me and so we decided to give it a go. Sweet hubby also attempted to make a few restaurant bookings in french lol.. the only French sentence he knows is "do you speak English?" (bless him) and he actually managed to get us booked in at a few places beforehand. Very impressive! My french however, has gone from rusty to dormant; in fact I struggled to dig out my vocabulary in this trip. Thankfully most people speak English anyway so it was fine. The only small problem we had was interpreting the french menus but we scraped through, either through me guessing the main words like chicken, salmon, fish or vegetables.. or getting the poor waiter to translate it for us.
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| That's our ferry! |
We drove more than 2h from our home to Portsmouth (I know, thinking about it, if we had taken a flight we'd be in France by then haha). From the port it was a very easy check in. We drove up to the customs booth and then to the security booth where they did a thorough check on our car before ushering us to follow a certain road which leads us into the ferry. Once we parked the car, we had to unload whatever we needed for our journey. Thereafter we could not get access into the carpark. As it was an overnight journey, K booked us a cabin to allow us to rest for the night before arriving in St Malo at 7.45am the next morning.
We got onto the ship which was pretty big and stable so you don't really feel the waves. I say that, but when we tried to sleep we did feel it and I didn't sleep very well if I be honest. That aside the cruise ship itself was pretty good in terms of facilities. There was a restaurant on board and a self-serve cheaper option. There was even a piano bar for you to have a drink or two; a club if you want to party on thru the night; two cinemas to watch movies (pretty current) and duty free shops. There was even a nail spa for you to do your nails. Pretty self-sufficient and entertaining right?
Being the party animals that we were, we visited the club at 1030pm, sat and listened to the live band. Barely a song later, we decided it was bedtime!
At 630am a soft tune was played in our cabin which signalled our morning call. Soon an announcement was made, in both French and English, to let us know we were arriving in St Malo in an hour's time. Rise and shine, time to grab a croissant and a cup of tea/coffee for breakfast.
Sunlight was streaming in by the time we left our cabin, and people were busy shuffling about, getting breakfast and also getting ready by packing up their bags.
Soon we received the signal that we could go to our cars. The ferry soon docked and cars were allowed to drive out one by one. We drove towards the French customs officer, showed him our passports from the comfort of our car, and drove off. Right into France. With St Malo in the distance, we decided to pay an early visit that morning. K kept raving about how convenient this was, without any airport fuss.. which is true I guess.
We were in St Malo just over four years ago, and that particular trip we planned our trip around Mont St Michel which is towards the east of where St Malo is. We visited St Malo for half a day, and I remember it was the Easter break and I was still wearing my puffy jacket.
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| 4 years ago |
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| 4 years ago in St Malo |
St Malo at 8am was very quiet with very little activity in the streets. Shops were still closed save a few bakeries and we could smell whiffs of fresh croissants and bread coming out of these shops. K immediately regretted that breakfast he bought on the ferry. It was nice to walk around whilst the town was still sleeping.
More pictures to come.. stay tuned
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