Ferry Portsmouth - St Malo

Portsmouth – St Malo with Brittany Ferries

This route links Portsmouth with St Malo, operated by Brittany Ferries. The two ferry terminals are about 250 kilometres (135 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.

St Malo

The Falkland Islands owe their French name, Îles Malouines, to sailors from Saint-Malo who made the voyage there in the early 1700s, and the Spanish "Malvinas" comes from the same root. Another Malouin, Jacques Cartier, sailed from the harbour in April 1534 on the first of his voyages to what is now Canada. The sea is still the town's business: every four years the Route du Rhum, the solo transatlantic race, starts from here, drawing crowds to the pontoons. Inside the granite ramparts the old town is compact enough to explore in an afternoon, and both Cancale, famous for its oysters, and Mont-Saint-Michel are within about an hour's drive.