Ferry Portsmouth - Caen

Portsmouth – Caen with Brittany Ferries

This route links Portsmouth with Caen, operated by Brittany Ferries. The two ferry terminals are about 180 kilometres (95 nautical miles) apart in a straight line. Use the search engine above for current timetables and fares, or use the Direct Ferries button at the top of the page to compare the sailings.

Brittany Ferries was created in 1972 by Breton farmers who wanted to sell their vegetables in Britain, and began operating from Roscoff in 1973. Based in Roscoff and Portsmouth, it links Brittany and Normandy with Plymouth and Portsmouth, and runs overnight crossings to Santander, Bilbao and Cork. Since September 2024 it has also been the majority owner of Condor Ferries, whose Channel Islands services are being brought under the Brittany Ferries name.

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the only island city in the United Kingdom: the old town sits on Portsea Island, joined to the mainland by bridges. It produced two famous sons within six years of each other. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsea in 1806 and Charles Dickens followed in 1812 at a modest house in Landport, now a museum furnished as it would have been in his day. Over in Southsea, a young doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle ran a practice in the 1880s and wrote the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, while waiting for patients. Ferries leave from the International Port on the harbour's eastern side for Normandy, Brittany, the Channel Islands and northern Spain, so many visitors arrive here with a long drive or an overnight sailing ahead of them.

Caen (Ouistreham)

For British visitors the ferry arrives at Ouistreham, at the mouth of the canal that links Caen to the sea, and the first thing to know is that you are minutes from one of the most famous bridges of the Second World War. In the early hours of 6 June 1944 glider troops under Major John Howard landed beside the Bénouville canal bridge and captured it intact, an action that opened the Normandy landings. The bridge is now known as Pegasus Bridge, the original span is displayed in the grounds of the Pegasus Memorial museum nearby, and the Café Gondrée next door is still run by the family who lived there in 1944. Caen itself has an older link with England: the pale limestone quarried around the city was shipped across the Channel and helped to build the White Tower at the Tower of London, parts of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral.