First time driving to costa Blanca

Not a trip I would realish in January.

Too early to predict but snow in the France/Spain border region can often result in very challenging driving conditions including both motorway and secondary road closures.

Hi Christine

Are you looking to go by the Santander/Bilbao route to avoid driving through France? As Darro stated weather can be very poor for driving at that time (ice not nice for a first time journey through France). We travel twice a year on the Brittany Ferries route via Santander/Bilbao with an 8hr approx journey both sides as our casa is just past Almansa. Sorry  can't give you best route for your journey as you are way past us and will probably require a stopover in Spain, but I can let you use our "friends" code as members of BF which is S0267, 0 being zero not letter O, and our surname is Savage. This will get you a 10% discount off the ferry fare price(not cabin price) but it all helps. Good luck with your journey, we love ours it's part of the experience of travelling. 

Regards 

Pauline 

Thank you for your advice certainly something to take into consideration. Appreciate your help 

Christine, if you look at the Michelin site it will give you a few routes to Spain, we’ve tried different ways the distance is about 1200 miles from Calais depending on route, we do 3 return trips each year with 2 dogs. We travel down the west side of France crossing into Spain near Irun and then heading for Zaragoza then onto Valencia, we only travel on motorways and have toll tags for France and Spain, if you decide to get one there’s a link on the Eurotunnel web site where you’ll save a few pennies.

We tried going through the central route that takes you through Paris, it was a total nightmare, the ring road is worse than the south circular, one to avoid.

The motorways through France and Spain are not that busy, we have 2 overnight stops Rouen and at St John-De-Luz. We take the 11.20 train, and drive down to Rouen which is about 3 hours from Calais, the second and third day are both about 500 miles each, but it is easy driving, and we do stop every couple of hours to let the dogs have a walk about.

We have tried the boat, but the weather on both trips was appalling.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for this advice it’s much appreciated. X

i have done the journey dozens of times and have done 6 different route's including, Portsmouth to Bilbao and Portsmouth to Santander, but only ever done a route in winter once and it's was very slippery in France at higher altitudes. via my favourite route through Andorra is a no no in winter and the Bilbao or Santander can be very choppy in the bay of Biscay at that time of year so if you get seasick don't go that route but a great way in the summer, so i reckon your best bet would be via Narbonne a1 a71, the other route via Lyon is were the ice and snow was when i drove it, have not got any idea wether you will find snow and ice via a1 a7 to Narbonne, thats the route i will be going when i go back mid December.

Thank you … after reading all the tips we have decided to take two weeks in January ( flying over ) and leave the driving until later some very good advice given much appropriated x

Can I suggest that you have a look at the N332 website before you start as it deals with anything to do with driving in Spain.   It is run in conjunction with officers of the Guardia Civil for English speaking people and has an English version of the Spanish equivalent of the Highway Code. 

Back in 2004 my late husband and I drove to Spain from Sheffield.   We started on the 2nd January after a snowfall and encountered some frost up until we started driving through France.   However, all the major roads were free from ice and snow so there were no problems in driving.