Brittany Ferries is launching a new UK-Spain ferry route from Portsmouth to Bilbao.

In September 2010, P&O Ferries discontinued its Portsmouth – Bilbao ferry service. This meant that the only remaining option for UK-Spain ferries were Brittany Ferries’ services from Portsmouth and Plymouth to Santander.

Brittany Ferries is now expanding their choice of UK-Spain ferry routes with a new service – Portsmouth – Bilbao. It’s interesting that Brittany can (presumably) make it pay where P&O couldn’t, even on the same route…

The service will initially run from Portsmouth on Sundays and Fridays and from Bilbao on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The sailings will take 24 hours, except for the Sunday sailing which will call at Roscoff for supplies and a crew change and thus will take 32 hours.

If you are heading for the east coast of Spain (e.g. Valencia, Alicante, Murcia), then you will save a little time if you start from Bilbao. Similarly, the more westerly port of Santander might be a better starting place for the Algarve, but the difference is not huge as Bilbao and Santander are only around 60 miles apart.

The Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-Bilbao service starts running on 27th March 2011 – click here for more details.