Chateaulin. France

[Dee Sa]

Friends [in their 70s] have moved there and invited us over, we live in Essex, I dont have the confidence to drive in France and hubby is disabled, [ reg blind] how can we get there preferably on a budget type airline and how far away would we be from them when we land in France, would it be near enough for them to collect us or would this be too far and an imposition ?any ideas/ help/ suggestions appreciated.
thanks Dee

[Buenchico]

Can you wait until April? Ryanair's new service, between Luton and Brest commences on 1 April.

Luton Airport is easily accessible from Essex. It's a fairly short drive from most parts of the county. Alternatively, if you take a train into Liverpool Street, it's just 3 stops on the Underground (or a short taxi ride) to Farringdon, where you can pick up a frequent train to Luton Airport Parkway (which has a fre shuttle bus service to the airport). Yet another alternative route is to travel to Stansted airport and then board a National Express coach (which links the two airports with 27 journeys per day).

Ryanair are currently quoting fares of �0.01 per way, for the random dates I've tried in April. With taxes and charges, if you book before midnight Thursday, you'll get a total fare (including taxes and charges) of �5 outbound and �10 inbound. i.e. �15 return, including t&c
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/

You could probably get your friends to collect you from Brest airport but, if you need travel details here they are:

From Brest airport, you can take the bus service to Brest rail station (�4.60 single, �8.40 return) or take a taxi (�15 daytime fare, �20 night fare).

Trains from Brest to Chateaulin Embranchement are infrequent bu take just 45 to 50 minutes. The single fare quoted on SNCF's UK website is �9:
http://www.sncf.co.uk/

Chris

[sddsddean]

Further to Chris' answer, I just looked at doing the whole thing by train. You would have to get to St. Pancras for the Eurostar to Paris Nord (�59 return each), cross on the metro to Paris Montparnasse (� 1.40) and then Paris to Brest on the TGV is about �49 (�39)single. Downside is the time. Eurostar is about 2.5 hours and TGV is about 4.5 hours, so by the time you have got from Brest to Chateaulin you are talking of a total journey time house to house of about 10 or 11 hours.

[Dee Sa]

many tks for all the help, I could drive to Luton and park up and hopefully friends can meet us.
Its so good that A/B ers are so helpful. will try in about May, but friends need plenty of notice as other people visit too.
best regards Dee