Driving to Andalucia from Bilbao and ferry questions

[DickWhittingtonsCat]

Has anyone taken the ferry from England to Bilbao? What was the trip like? Where would you make overnight stays if you were driving from Bilbao to Andalucia? What's the motorway and A road driving like in Spain, compared to say UK, Ireland or France?

My Mum lives in Andalucia and when she uses the ferry she goes to Santander. My Mum always uses the toll roads as they are quieter than the equivalent to B roads over here but obviously it costs her.

That hasn't helped much has it!

Have a great trip though

Thanks for your message. Actually we are trying to get to a family yoga retreat in a village near Malaga in August. My plans keep changing when I see how expensive it all is! The car ferry is nearly £700, and £380 even if we went as foot passengers. The train from Bilbao to Malaga is express but they are quoting us £250. The cheapest air fares for August are the same for ds as for me, coming to £400, but I am so sick of all that airport parking hassle and rude service on nofrills airlines. Then I thought we could go all by train, and there is a lovely route with overnight sleeper train Paris to Madrid, which fits with connections from London and on to Malaga, and ds gets a reduced price - except I've been quoted £600 total. I'm trying to find out if we can get a reduced fare on some kind of family railcard. Any tips welcome; the village in near Ronda.

Family yoga retreat sounds great DWC. Do they do classes for the kids?

Westcountrylass, can I ask for advice about local transport in Andalucia? Overland was way too expensive, so we are now pooling all our airmiles and flying! Incidentally, nearly40, yes there will be a few children's classes. I am tempted to add on a couple of days before/after the retreat as we have never been to Andalucia and it makes the flights cheaper to travel midweek. Westcountrylass, is the main thing to see the Alhambra Palace? We weren't planning to hire a car, as there are pickups to the retreat from the local bus. Do you think we would be better off spending our extra few days in Malaga and doing an organised sightseeing tour to Granada (poss Cordoba and Seville) or do you think we could just stay do a little circuit by public transport, staying in local hotels or the youth hostels as we went?

Which airlines have you looked at, DWC? Have you checked flights to Almeria/Granada? (Or have you booked already and I am asking too late?)

Car hire is ridiculously cheap in Spain btw and driving is a doddle mostly.

We went to the Alhambra last Oct, you have to go there, it's so beautiful. Also try to catch the circular bus that goes around the city on the hill opposite the Alhambra, can't remember the number but we caught it by accident and it's a real magical mystery tour, we kept thinking the bus would crash into houses but it just sneaked through gaps barely as wide as it!

Rhonda is quite a drive from Malaga !
We stayed outside Granada last Sept but flew to Malaga - flights were approx £150 each. We could have got them cheaper but dithered !
No hastle at airport & car hire there was straight forward. Roads were great & not busy.

The Alhambra is great - but buy tickets in advance (you can do this via Internet) as they limit numbers of people entering per day.
We also visited Cordoba but decided Rhonda was too far away.