Nicole Garnon and family travelled to Spain - the long way round

TELL anyone you're travelling to Spain by ferry and they look at you as if you've lost your marbles.

With so many flights available it does seem mad to spend 18 hours on a ferry and then more time driving to the Costa Brava.

But sometimes it's nice to do things the long way around.

We booked via www.drivealive.co.uk, a website which is great if, like us, you don't like to do the package holiday thing. You can try out myriad combinations of travel dates and ferry crossings to European destinations, opt for hotels, self-catering apartments or - our choice - caravan parks, until you have the holiday you want.

Drive Alive can organise insurance and sell you Michelin road maps. They can work in overnight stops to break up long journeys and really are a one-stop shop.

We opted for the ferry to Spain, tempted by the fact that we would be travelling aboard Brittany Ferries' brand new £100m Pont Aven, sailing from Plymouth to Santander.

All this aboard a ship which is more cruise ship than car ferry, with two cinemas, a swimming pool, numerous restaurants and bar areas, shop and the vital play area where children happily spend hours forging new friendships and passing the time away.

In fact the ferry trip was very much part of the holiday rather than merely the "journey" .

A comfortable cabin also means you can start the real journey across Spain after a decent night's sleep.

Our road journey was long and very hot but Spain's motorways, which are engineered to an incredibly high standard, make driving really straightforward.

The cost of any tolls are more than balanced by low fuel costs.

Our site, the three-star Camping Internacional de Calogne, couldn't be closer to the famous Costa Brava coastline, nestling in tree-covered hills behind a sandy beach reached by a footbridge directly from the site.

We had opted for a Eurocamp caravan, safe in the knowledge that it would be clean, well equipped and that the campsite-based staff would be excellent. We weren't disappointed.

Just a couple of kilometres from the nearest bustling resort of Playa d'Aro, the campsite (boasting an excellent, well-stocked supermarket) is ideally placed for people who enjoy having everything close to hand. For us though, the attraction was its proximity to some of the best countryside in the Costa Brava region.

Early in the holiday we struck an agreement with our children that we would alternate days between their choice of what to do and ours.

That way they were happy to spend a day exploring the beautiful, fascinating walled city of Girona, the capital of the area , or another in the incredible Salvador Dali museum at Figueras (with its inevitably long but very good natured queues), and yet another in the mountainous countryside with its medieval walled towns, happy in the knowledge that the next day they would decide the itinerary.

More often than not their days consisted of a visit to a toy shop in Playa d'Aro, followed by a few hours on the sandy beach with body boards, snorkles and lilos, or at the spotless ly clean campsite pool complex.

The cool evening would be spent playing boules, or badminton on the friendly site. Then there would be a meal at a local restaurant, the campsite bar, or even just outside the caravan, where we sat listening to ciccadas and feeding a tame hedgehog which visited every night.

On parents' days we explored this lovely region of Spain, with its beautiful scenery, and its mix of vibrant modern cities and towns, mediaeval villages and archaeological sites.

We broke the journey home with an overnight stay on the northern coast - a short drive from the port of Santander, where we picked up the Pont Aven for the 'cruise' home. Delightful and proof that we're not that mad.

* Next month Nicole looks at the hidden delights of the Costa Brava region.

FACT FILE

* www.brittany-ferries.co.uk or call 08703 665333. * www. Eurocamp.co.uk * www.drive-alive.co.uk