Help with travel from Cherbourg FR to Bristol UK

Flying out of Cherbourg is going to be tricky, while Cherbourg does have an airport there are no commercial flights to or from it. The ferry from Cherbourgh to Poole seems like the easiest option.

Badger, thank you very much. You know, now that I think about it, I think we may have flown in and out of Caen, not Cherbourg. It's been a long time (2008). So, using Caen as an airport, how can we get to Sommerset/Nunney?

Thanks again,
Cliff

You’re right that Bristol is by far the biggest airport in the region but there are no flights from Caen. There are flights from Nantes or Paris.

There is the ferry from Cherbourg but I think last year they weren’t taking foot passengers so you’d need to check that.

Caen airport only has French domestic flights and a once a week flight to Kerry (Ireland) - that one starts on 29 June 2024.

By far the most logical route is the Cherbourg or Caen to Portsmouth overnight ferry (Brittany ferries), or the day ferry (also BF) Cherbourg to Poole.- and the ferries have always taken foot passengers, contrary to Helen's statement above.

Then the hourly train Portsmouth to Westbury, change, Westbury to Frome- overall journey time 2:30, then the sketchy Frome Bus service #162 (or taxi).

By train would be Eurostar to London St Pancras, tube, then train from Paddington to Frome changing at Westbury or Bath. There is one Paddington to Frome train daily at 1808.

Flights (if you must) are Paris Orly to Bristol on easyjet, bus to Bristol Temple Meads station, train to Frome; or Eastern Airways Paris CDG- Southampton, then train from the Airport station changing at Southampton Central and Westbury.

You know, now that I think about it, I think we may have flown in and
out of Caen, not Cherbourg.

Maybe you did fly out of Cherbourg, according to Wikipedia 2008 was the last year with commercial flights to Cherbourg.

So, using Caen as an airport, how can we get to Sommerset/Nunney?

You could in theory fly from Caen to e.g. Lyon or Marseille and self connect there to a flight to Bristol. But that would be silly (and I'm not having things getting silly). Just take the ferry across the channel to Poole as mentioned.

If I was doing this journey I’d fly from Paris to Bristol then just get a taxi from Bristol airport direct to Nunney. Trying to take public transport will be an enormous amount of faffing about and time wasting.

The ferry takes ages and is ok if you want to bring a car but flying will be far quicker.

FYI, the port for Caen is called Ouistreham. For ferry information, go to ferries.co.uk or directferries.com. You might want to book whatever travel you decide on soon, as Normandy will be quite busy in early June!

There is no need at all to look at these third party websites- just go direct to the Brittany Ferries website as highlighted above. They are the only operator on the route and will always offer the best fares. Any problems and it is far easier to have a direct booking

Yes, avoid the booking sites mentioned earlier. There is no reason to involve them.

And yes, the ferry takes a while. But if you take the overnight departure that really doesn't matter in my opinion, you'll have to sleep anyway and the ferry saves you the cost of a night in a hotel.

I want to thank you ALL for your super helpful advice and information. You gave me some very valuable help and I appreciate it very much. There are no accommodations available on the ferries so it's looking like we will travel back to Paris and fly to Bristol. Thank you again!

Cliff