Ferries have made headlines in the past couple of weeks. Yet as arguments rage about wages for seafarers on cross-Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea routes, elsewhere in Europe new sea links are opening up travel possibilities – most enticingly, adding a Dutch-Norwegian option.
Starting on 7 April, MS Romantika will sail three times a week each way between Eemshaven on the north coast of the Netherlands and Kristiansand in southern Norway.
The schedule is ideal for anyone who relishes slow travel: leaving each end of the route at 3pm and arriving at 9am next day. That’s 18 hours to relax while crossing between two alluring and very different nations. You’ll be on board a vessel that was used on the Clyde during Cop26 to provide extra accommodation for the Glasgow event, and which has a jacuzzi and sauna.
You may be unfamiliar with the ports at each end of the new route: Kristiansand is a beautifully located and embroidered city near the southern tip of Norway. Eemshaven has nothing to write home about – but it is 15 miles northwest of the city of Groningen, which has excellent rail connections.
British travellers can therefore choose between a Eurostar train from London via Brussels to Amsterdam and a direct rail connection from there, or the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland and a Metro and train combination to Groningen.
As the new edition of Hidden Europe magazine reports: “For very dedicated ferry travellers (or those averse to flying), it now becomes possible travel by boat from ports in eastern England to Iceland or the Barents Sea coast of northeast Norway with just that one short transfer on land between any of the Dutch North Sea ferry ports and Eemshaven.
“If you’re combing the timetables to see how that’s possible, the trick is to continue from Kristiansand by boat to Hirtshals in North Jutland, from where there are direct onward boats to the Faroes, Iceland and Bergen, the latter with a good connection into Hurtigruten sailings up the Norwegian coast.”
A test booking I made for the first northbound sailing of Romantika shows a cost for a two-berth cabin for €225 (£194) for a one-way journey: at £97 per person, more than a budget flight, but for a voyage that is a rewarding dimension of an adventure.
Even before Covid-19, mind, 21st-century ferry links in Europe have proved precarious ventures. Passenger voyages between Rosyth in Scotland and Zeebrugge in Belgium demanded too much subsidy and ended in 2010.
A “motorway of the seas”, supported by the European Union, was designed to divert traffic from the autoroutes of western France and the autopistas of northern Spain by connecting the port of St-Nazaire with Gijon in the beautiful Spanish province of Asturias.
“GLD Atlantique”, as the line was branded, came and went. At least it actually started. In 2019 I excitedly reported: “After years of negotiations between the governments in Ankara and Athens, a new daily ferry route connecting mainland Greece with Turkey will start in June.”
This wasn’t one of the several long-running links between Turkey and nearby Greek islands. It was to link Lavrio, 25 miles southeast of Athens, with Cesme, 55 miles west of Turkey’s third city Izmir.
I even more excitedly booked on the first trip. Fortunately I learnt just before I flew to Turkey that Aegean Seaways had encountered some operational difficulties. I am still waiting …
Meanwhile more good ferry news from Hidden Europe: Rostock in the former East Germany to Nynashamn near Stockholm – via Visby on the island of Gotland. And at the cusp of when a ferry journey becomes a cruise, the editors propose a 28-hour journey from Porto Torres in Sardinia to Alcudia in Mallorca with stops in Corsica, Toulon (southern France) and Menorca along the way.
Mediterranean bliss.
