Ferry Dover - Calais (P&O Ferries)

Dover – Calais with P&O Ferries

This route links Dover with Calais, operated by P&O Ferries. The two ferry terminals are about 42 kilometres (22 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.

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company dates from 1837, and today's P&O Ferries has been owned by DP World since 2019. Its Spirit of Britain and Spirit of France, at about 210 metres long, are the largest ferries ever to sail the Channel. It also runs Hull–Rotterdam, Hull–Zeebrugge and Liverpool–Dublin.

Dover

Few harbours have a better claim to be the front door of Britain. Dover Museum holds the Bronze Age Boat, found in the mud beneath the town in 1992 and dated to around 1550 BC, thought to be the oldest known seagoing boat in the world, which tells you how long people have been crossing here. Above the docks, the Napoleonic-era fortifications of the Western Heights and the cliffs themselves, cared for by the National Trust along this stretch, make for some of the best short walks in Kent. A little way along the coast, Samphire Hoe is a nature reserve built from chalk excavated during the Channel Tunnel works and now home to wildflowers and seabirds. The town is a short train ride from London St Pancras, so a sailing from the Eastern Docks combines easily with a day in the capital.

Calais

The Strait of Dover has always made Calais a place people cross from. Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim the Channel unaided in August 1875, setting off from Dover and wading ashore here after almost 22 hours. In July 1909 Louis Blériot took off from the dunes just west of town and landed beside Dover Castle, making the first flight across the Channel in a powered aeroplane. Calais is also where Charles de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux in 1921, at the church of Notre-Dame. Today the ferry port sits a few minutes from a town centre that is easy to explore on foot, and the Opal Coast begins just beyond the harbour: the chalk headlands of Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez, from where, on a clear day, you can see across to the English coast.