Calais shopping, Day trips to France & Belgium

Travelling to France - its getting cheaper

Airlines - Budget airlines & other carriers.

Airports - Airports in France, United Kingdom and other E.U. member states.

Buying cars in France, Belgium, & Holland.

Car hire in France - Cars, motor homes, companies, links. Spain, Camping Cars

Coach Travel - coach companies, all details and links.

Day-trippers crossing the Channel - all the day trip companies. Book a fare with Brittany ferries, Condor Ferries, Eurotunnel, Norfolkline, P and O Ferries (Channel), P & O Ferries (Calais), SeaFrance, Stena, Transmanche.

Other Ferry Companies - Colorline, DFDS, Irish ferries, Norse Merchant, P&O Irish Sea, POFerry North Sea etc.

Rail - Getting to and around France by rail. Agents & companies. Rail Europe

Calais Hotels - Calais Restaurants - Calais Tourism

"plan your journey to save"

Channel Ports (other) - Boulogne, Dieppe, Cherbourg, many more.

Conversions - pounds to Kilograms? Miles to kilometres?

Driving information - tips, links, autoroutes, find cheap fuel, Breakdown insurance.

French - phrases and words, study information

French Search Engines - helpful when you are looking for something special.

Holidays in France - links and information on many types of holiday in France.

Hotels - in Calais and France. Logis and Gites de France, B & B, camping. Links to all the chains. Book a hotel in France

Travel Insurance - information and links to many companies. Ski Insurance

Pets Abroad - some useful info.

Property to Buy in France - links, information.

Property to rent in France - links, information.

Restaurants - in Calais & other Channel ports.

Route Planners - choose from one of many we have found.

Skiing - Ski companies, resorts, links, useful info.

Tourism - places to visit.

Tourist Offices - Nord, Pas-de-Calais and the rest of France.

Travellers Tips - useful tips & advice.

Useful information - Public & School holidays, events, France info.

Weather in all the channel ports.

Save £563 in France, £931 in Belgium, £939 in Luxembourg and stay within the limits!

A horror story - it happened in New Labour Britain, will the coalition stop this nonsense?

March 2010 - Why do our MP's tolerate this sort of behaviour?

"Aggressive behaviour by 1 customs officer in particular from the minute he asked us to come with him, and within 30 seconds he was in my face not shouting but very loud and the tone was very intimidating (the others were very polite) was threatened with arrest 3 times, went back through travel history back to 2001 (scary eh?). We never got ruffled or impolite to the point we were thanked at the end for being very nice to them. They knew far too much about us for it to have been a random pull in. Only thing they got wrong was they said they believed we didn't smoke at which point we actually laughed, another thing which was quite disturbing, I was refused access to the toilet twice and it wasn't until I said I would be weeing on the floor they finally let me go to the toilet. I thought it was quite barbaric, I also thought that was against the law to be refused access to a toilet, as you are allowed a wee in gaol. No such thing as any privacy at gatwick either, we were interviewed in full public view with everybody walking past us from all the other flights."

2009

"After answering the questions the officer went away with our passports and came back 10 - 15 minutes later with a small notepad with his questions & our answers on and asked us to sign it. We refused because this list of Q & A had been compiled in another part of the airport away from us. The senior officer came out to us and said that if we didn't sign, then he would! He wasn't present when the questions were asked so how could he sign it to say it was completely accurate? We found this a breach of our rights as it should have been written down it word for word face to face, and totally unacceptable that a senior officer would sign something that he hadn't witnessed. The tobacco was confiscated and we were given a seizure note of the amounts confiscated.

The officer told us that they were taking it because we were `over the limit`. We asked `what limit?` as we had been told that there is no limit if for own use or gifts which was what ours was, half for my husband and half a gift for our son. We produced the receipt for these goods confirming that tax duty had been paid on them. We are appealing.

Many thanks for your excellent & informative site"

We agree - please let your MP and MEP's know your feelings.

With daytrips to Calais costing just £25 via Day-tripper.net with PO Ferries, you can do a few trips, buy the wines you like and then go back to stock up with the ones you want or enjoyed.