Dear Nick and friends
I have been doing some rough costings to see what would be possible, and these are my rough costings. Drive to Ports mouth and get the boat to Bilbao and drive across Northern spain via Zaragoza in a car that can do 75 mpg will cost about £950. To drive to Dover and take a short ferry and then drive down via Limoges and Toulouse and see Nick Poll will cost about £630. To fly down to Barcelona on Easyjet and take the train up to manrisa will cost between £200 and £400 depending upon when you booked. and to take the overnight train from London to Barcelona and then a train up to Manresa could cost between £140 and £300 depending upon sleeping accomodation availability from Paris to Barcelona.
Once in Manresa accomodation for a hotel in the city could be £70 per night, or out of town (if you have a car) £60 per night, or sharing an appartment for 4 for 3 nights could cost approx £40 per person per night.
So you can see that overnight train there and back plus a shared appartment could be as low as £260, but more realistically £510. while the fly and train would be about the same price. The idea of traveling all across France or northern Spain could be a better option if you were going to make it a two week driving holiday, as you could avoid a lot of the french road tolls by using the N roads. and visit people and places on the way. Having spent two weeks driving through France on N roads, It is much more interesting than it sounds, but it is exhausting if you are on your own. A co driver is to be recommended.
You pays your money and takes your choice.
For me I would favour the fly and train option with a shared appartment for 3 days. Arrive on the Friday and return on the Monday. The drive over the mountains in a Bentley 3 litre would be magnificent.
Perhaps I should do a costing for flights to Toulouse!!!
Chris Thomas
