For the love of dogs ... driving to Spain

For many years we have enjoyed holidaying in our home on the south of the Costa Blanca , which is just a few hours flight from the UK.

This time we decided to take our little Chihuahua ‘Elvis’ along.

Before you travel with your dog overseas I would highly recommend that you speak your vets, since the UK has left the EU it means there is no pet passport any longer and the pet paperwork that replaces this is a lot more expensive. As well as the health requirements your pet will need for paperwork into the EU, there are additional offer health factors to think about such as protecting your pet against things like sandflies & mosquitos etc.

For the outbound journey we decided to book the Portsmouth to Bilbao crossing with Brittany Ferries, as they also most importantly offer dog friendly cabins. Once dogs are on board they are limited to stay in the pet friendly cabin or on the dog deck outside, they are not permitted anywhere else on the ferry. It is also not the smoothest crossing, so if you are likely to suffer from sea sickness, make sure you take some preventative treatments.

We sailed on Britany’s Galicia ferry, where on board you have plenty of lounges, a tapas restaurant , bar as well as an al le carte restaurant. You receive 90 minute of free wifi , and then after that you can pay a charge of approx £25 which will last you the whole duration of your crossing ( as you can imagine the wifi isn’t great, so don’t expect to get too much for done ) … I found this out for myself.

Embarking and disembarking the ferry is quite a long wait.

Once in sunny Bilbao we made our way down to the area of Rojales where our house is. It was pretty much business for me as usual, however I did set up my office outside next to the pool.

We did venture into the city of Elche, which is just half an hour away from us, and went to explore their Palm garden, we also visited the neighbouring town of Guardamar, and enjoyed a walk down the promenade and dipping our toes in the sea.

We wanted to try a different way to get home at the end of the two weeks, so we decided to take Le Shuttle from Calais to Folkestone … what a game changer, it also meant we had an incredibly scenic drive.

We left our house at lunchtime , and drove up along the coastline, stopping on the Costa Brava for the evening, during the peak summer months Costa Brava is teaming with tourists, but during this shoulder season it felt more like a sleepy seaside town.

The next day we set off and crossed the boarder over into France, we rebooked a stay in the historic capital of Normandy, Rouen. This was a nice comfortable two hour drive to Calais the next day.

There are lots of dog friendly hotel chains in Spain and France , and eating with your dog is so much easier in both countries than it is here in the UK. Due to us having a house in Spain, we got Elvis an EU dog passport whilst we were there.

As we were returning to the UK from France, the UK requires dogs to have had a tapeworm treatment within 5 days of crossing the boarder, this has to be administered by a vet.

Ok, let me get to the trip that really made our holiday … Le Shuttle … I know it has been around for years , but this is the first time we have ever used it , and oh my word, they could not be more organised or make the process any easier, it was a joy !

Arrive at the Eurotunnel, first port of call is the pet reception where you will need to take you pet in along with all their paperwork , you will also need your Le Shuttle booking reference, then you can go and check in, this is done at a drive thru automated machine that will print out that is essentially your boarding pass, with a boarding number on, you need to have this from your review mirror, Once through , you park up at the terminal, this is basically your departure lounge, there are big screens located in the car park , so you can see when you will be boarding the train.

Within the terminal you will find a Burger King, Starbucks, WH Smith , a local coffee/ sandwich shop as well as all of your duty free, there is also a small fenced in exercise area for your dog.

As we were sat in the ‘departure lounge’ a steward came round and said we could actually board early as the train before use was quite empty. Big ish queue to board , but moved quickly, and a huge improvement on the ferry queues.

Once you have driven through French immigration, you then drive through UK border control , this allows you to drive straight off the train the other side and be on your way,

We were on board the train within an hour of arriving at Eurotunnel, one on board the train you can get out of your vehicle if you wish, pets do have to stay inside of the car.

The crossing is super fast, we were back in the Uk just 35 minute later, and it took all of 15 minutes for us to be offloaded and back on the British Roads, totally impressed with the smoothness of the journey coming home, even with the 3 days of driving.

We are back in Spain for the whole summer, and will be using Le Shuttle in both directions that time.

Just some random Shuttle facts, that after our journey I looked into the train is half a mile long, and travels up to 140 km ph , the train weights a whopping 3000 kilos.