When we started building this itinerary, we knew that we wanted to travel from Ireland to France. We could have gone to Dublin and then flown to Paris. Or we could catch a ferry.
We chose to catch the ferry from Cork, Ireland, to Roscoff, France. We booked this months ago, and then built some things around it.
The ferry occurs twice per week. We were scheduled to leave Cork on a Saturday afternoon at 17:30 and arrive at Roscoff, France at 07:00 Sunday morning.
Our day in Cork before we left: we went for a run, checked out of our hotel, had a picnic lunch in the hotel lobby, and then caught the bus to the ferry terminal. With all of our luggage and questionable weather, we didn't quite know what to do in Cork for the day. The public bus to the Cork Port, called "Ringaskiddy" only left once per hour. We had some emails from the ferry company telling us we were now scheduled to leave at 16:00, and that we had to check in 90 min before... So we just went to the port after lunch. The weather was cold, raining hard and windy. There really isn't anything to do at the port. It's a basic large waiting room with toilets and some seats. No food, no coffee, no entertainment. But there was wifi so Jason could work while we hung out. We boarded at about 16:30 and started sailing at about 17:40.
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| Our last run in Cork |
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| Waiting for the bus near our hotel |
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| Walking into the ferry terminal, waiting for the cranes |
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| The ferry terminal in Cork |
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| Our ferry |
The ferry was really nice. (It was a nicer ship than our Hurtigruten ferry in Norway). There were three restaurants (one upscale, one nice cafeteria, and a cafe). There was a bar area with a stage and some live entertainment and shows. There was a small pool, although it was closed during our sailing. There was a duty free shop, a spa, and cabins. We had a cabin with four bunks tucked closely together and a little bathroom. After our dinner and exploring the ship, things got pretty rocky. I decided to go spend the evening horizontal but the rest of the family enjoyed a bit of entertainment before bed. I think we slept ok despite the rocking and nobody got sick.
We woke up at 5am and ended up docking at 6am Irish time, which is 7am French time. In retrospect, I wish we had woken earlier and grabbed some breakfast before leaving, but it already felt like an early start.
We walked a short distance off the ferry with our luggage and got on to a shuttle bus with about 8 other people for 2 minutes that took us to French customs. We went through customs quickly and easily. That brought us into the Roscoff fery terminal waiting area. A covered, no frills area with seats and wifi, bathrooms, and a bar/small restaurant that opened on this particular Sunday morning at about 8:30am and served alcohol and pastries. It's possible that at other times of the week they have a more complete menu, but not on Sunday mornings. Cue our first "pan du chocolate" and flaky croissants in France! Yum!
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| Waiting in the ferry terminal in Roscoff, early Sunday morning |
The next leg of our tip - a 12:00 noon bus from Roscoff to Morlaix. We couldn't find anything more efficient than this. The "Europcar" station at the ferry terminal is either permanently closed, or open very infrequently, but renting a car before Rennes on a Sunday was not possible. The Avis station in Morlaix is closed on Sundays. The "bus" from Roscoff to Morlaix is actually bought as a train ticket. There used to be a train station, but it is now closed and replaced by a bus. Also, on some days of the week the bus might come to the ferry terminal, but on Sundays, the bus comes into the Roscoff town center. This is about a 10 min walk from the terminal.
So, from landing at 6am until it was light outside, we waited inside the terminal to stay dry and warm.
Then we walked into Roscoff. The town and harbour is adorable. On a warm summer day, hanging out here for a bit would be great. On a cooler fall day, it was ok. We were thankful that it wasn't raining. We walked around looking for breakfast. There were many places that were closed. Those that were open served croissants, alcohol, and coffee/tea. So we had some more pastry and then found a small grocery store and bought some more snacks and sandwiches for our day.
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| R and daddy went to the beach |
We went to the old train station, assuming that the bus would come there. That's what our google maps suggested. We knew it was a boarded up building with a small parking are and nothing to do. There were some small signs near the door. One indicated "Rennes to Morlaix" SNCF (that's the train company we had booked with that operates all trains in France). So we sat and read and hung out. Ava actually had a scary scenario of getting locked inside a toilet nearby and couldn't unlock the door to get herself out. Thankfully we heard her calling and ran to get her and worked out the door scenario!
About 20 minutes before the bus was due to arrive, we thought it was odd that we hadn't seen any other travelers waiting with us. There were a handful of other backpackers we'd seen and assumed they were likely to be doing this same trip... so we looked at the signs on the door more carefully. With help from Google translate, we worked out that the signs were saying that this building was closed (which we knew) and that the bus station was now down by the habour in the cute promenade in front of the water. So we grabbed our stuff and huffed it back to that area (about 800m away) and saw the bus stop and the backpackers, just as the bus pulled up. We were relieved to get on!
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| The train station, boarded up. It does have a sign that says "SNCF Roscoff-Morlaix" but it's not where you want to wait |
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| The bus station in town where you DO want to sait to get to Morlaix |
It's about 30 min on bus from Roscoff to Morlaix.
The bus drops you off right at the gare (train station) and you easily transfer with a few extra minutes before the fast and amazingly clean and wonderful TGV train picks you up on the platform. The train to Rennes then takes about 90 min. So we landed at about 14:30.
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| The fast TGV train from Morlaix to Rennes was the nicest train we've been on so far this trip. |
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| Outside the Rennes train station |
The train station in Rennes is lovely, clean and full of little shops and places to eat.
So we left our hotel in Cork at about 12noon on one day, and arrived in Rennes at 14:30 the next day after walk, bus, ferry, walk, bus, train. It's not a convenient scenario and there isn't a lot about it that's particularly appealing. But it did let us get to the Brittany area.
In our case, we rented a car and then drove to Saint-Malo, then Mont St. Michel, before moving on via train again toward Paris.
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