Drive or fly

[Ray and Sally]

Hi all, We are intending to come over to Corfu within the next few days for about a month to work on our house, we haven't been able to travel until now or even make arrangements to travel as Sally has been very ill and under the hospital for sometime, however we saw the consultant today and she said we are good to go so here we come. We would like to drive over in our Land Rover so we could bring the tools and so on required to work on the house as opposed to flying and having to buy all the equipment needed to do the work, also if we fly we will need to hire a car for a month, we understand that there are costs involved in driving over such as fuel, ferries, hotels, tolls etc, but just wondered how easy it is to drive down and which port in Italy is the easiest to travel from, also can we just turn up at the ferry port and pay or do we have to book in advance, we have never driven through europe before so any advice will be welcome.
Thanks all and see you soon.

Ray and Sally.

[Eggy]

Ray n Sally

I have been told that driving over can work out very expensive indeed, so hope that you get some good advice from those who have done/achieved it.
Probably an easy drive for those who have done it before??

Weigh up the costs , maybe. - Possible car hire , for one month , could be around the 500e mark.-  Can you ship all your tools over with a "Man with Van" ?

Me ? - I would fly , hire a car, (Delivered to and taken back to Airport would "shave" around e110 against the taxi fares to n fro)
Maybe get all your tools packed up for someone else to bring. - And then...... depending on their charge, per kilo ,work out what the cost would be to buy what you need here. Many here who would help , as you know.

Cheers
Negg

[angiem]

My other half has done this trip several times now and reckons that the cheapest way is Belgium/Germany/Austria and catch ferry from Ancona (Italy). More in petrol/diesel but much much less in tolls etc. He says money can certainly be saved by booking channel ferry in advance, and probably advisable to book in advance for Corfu ferry but only to ensure you can get on (i.e. not to save money). Downside of booking Corfu ferry in advance, is no flexibility to stay an extra night somewhere en-route, or if you fancy a detour to Venice  etc.

By the way, as regards taking tools over , if you're intending to buy new, Steve says check out a company called 'Screwfix' - they advertise free delivery in the EU (subject to minimum order). So, order online in the UK before you go, and get them delivered to you in Corfu? - just a thought.

Have a good trip.
We're hoping to get to Arillas sometime soon so maybe see you there.

Angie

[Ray and Sally]

Hi all, Thanks for the replies, we have decided to fly, must confess our house isn't in Arillas, it's actually in Lakones but don't worry we'll be spending plenty of time in Arillas during our stay as we have fallen in love with it just like everyone else on here. We arrive 9th june until 10th July so if you spot us say hello, we'll be the ones with the big smiles all over our faces if that helps.

[BBB]

Wise choice if just staying just for a month. We've done the drive 20+ times and used many different routes. You must try it sometime. We do it leisurely with 2 or 3 overnight stops. It is 13 to 15 hours of driving.
The Eurotunnel is £200 each way if you just turn up but much cheaper booked in advance ie £75 each way. Tolls can be £100+ and you'll need an Austrian or Swiss Vignette €40 or the Mont Blanc/Fregus Tunnels are €42 each way. The Anek or Minoan ferries to Igoumenitsa go from Ancona or Venice. There is 10% discount for over 60s and early booking discounts if you can plan ahead. The return for 2 plus car and cabin is €8-900 without discounts.
Petrol maybe £250 each way. Ferry from Igou to Corfu is €60 each way. Then hotel costs to add on.
We absolutely love the drive and use the opportunity to see many beautiful places in Europe.

[Ray and Sally]

Hi, thanks for all the info, very informative and very useful for future reference, we will definitely be driving down one day, maybe october for the beer festival, are ferries still running?

[BBB]

The ferries run all year. This is a good site showing all the ferries, Anek, Minoan and Superfast,
http://www.onferry.com/index.php?lang=en

[Anne]

Hi - we are in Arillas at the moment - this is our second year of driving over and staying for 3 months. I dont know if you have seen my Arillas or bust blog - but here is a link to it for the journey last year - http://annewineoclock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-journey_7.html

It was great for our first time of driving here, if we wanted to do this journey again we would do exactly the same route apart from using the Ancona ferry instead of the Bari one. It saves one days driving and one days fuel. We bought a Campervan so we could bring our dog over with us, the airlines wanted £1000 return for her, so we decided that would go a long way to our journey costs - £1200 including diesel, tolls, and ferries.

This year we drove down through France as we wanted to see my cousin. We took a lot longer this year and it was much more leisurely, with our Campervan it meant we could just drive until we found somewhere we liked the look of and stayed the night. The Ancona ferry was brilliant as we had a pet friendly cabin. This is the link to this years journey - http://arillasorbust2015.blogspot.gr/2015/04/the-journey.html

If you like driving I would say go for it - great experience for you Anne xx

[Barry]

Amazing isn't it? Here I am sat on my balcony at the Marvel reading your blog and you've just driven past.
Have a safe journey home.

Barry and Chris.