The ferry service between Portsmouth and Cherbourg is
provided by P&O Portsmouth and Condor Ferry Lines.
Click here to go to the booking engine to compare prices and
for the best Portsmouth to Cherbourg ferry offers.
Portsmouth
Of all the channel ferry ports in the UK Portsmouth has the best road connections. The
M275 brings the national motorway network right to the port itself and London is closer to
central London than the Channel Tunnel or Dover. Coaches to the port provide direct
services to London Victoria Coach Terminal and Gatwick and Heathrow airports. What's more
recent road improvements means that an exit road gives cars and coaches direct access to a
northbound slip road on to the M275 plus easy access to central Portsmouth.
Train services between London Waterloo and Portsmouth are frequent as are London Victoria
to Portsmouth trains which stop at Brighton and Gatwick too. From the west services from
Cardiff pass through mainline stations like Bristol and Salisbury. Portsmouth and Southsea
train station is a short bus ride from the port but services are frequent and pretty
reliable.
Cherbourg
Cherborg is very convenient for travelling to Normandy or Brittany, there are up to 7
sailings to and from Cherbourg each day, either on traditional ferries (which take approx
5 hours by day and 8 hours by night) or on the Portsmouth Express (which takes only 2
hours and 45 minutes).
Cherbourg is at the end of the N13/A13 dual carriageway/autoroute from Paris and this
links to the A84 autoroute (still under construction) to Rennes.
The old part of Cherbourg town centres around the old basin, the fishing port. Its history
goes back at least to Roman times although there aren’t any Roman remains to be seen.
It is over looked by the 'Fort du Roule' which gives fantastic views of the town on a
clear day.
The town is worth spending some time in rather than just rushing through to or from the
ferry or hypermarket and has a number of activities to pass the day. These include a new
attraction, la Cité de la Mer which opened in 2002 in the former trans-Atlantic terminal
building which is cylindrical aquarium and a former nuclear submarine.
The town does not have huge shopping facilities but there are a number of smaller shops
where bargains can be found. There are a number of larger hypermarkets that can be found
on the outskirts of town, the largest being Carrefour at Octeville on the edge of town as
you leave on the main N13.
