My amazing Gran- the one who looked after me before and after nursery for years then whose house I went to after school every day, whilst my mum and dad worked full time jobs so they could spoil me on scores of holidays and adventures. The one who who was always there for me throughout my life, was turning the grand age of 80. My family were all booked to go to Costa Del Sol, Spain for a weeks holiday to celebrate this momentous occasion, that's when I had a thought that I could fly there and surprise my Gran, upon mentioning it to Shannon, the plans quickly transformed into a road trip- leaving Guernsey in our little Mini Cooper and driving through France to reach them in Spain. We had taken 10 days leave from work to get there and back, and only a few weeks to plan it all. My parents were in on the surprise and although tough, done an excellent job at not mentioning it to my Gran or Papa.
We booked us and the car to go on condor ferries from Guernsey to St Malo, France- return, costing us £283, which already seemed a lot of money. We as usual didn't really have a budget (not always a good plan but we generally know how things map out), but we had exchanged £800 into €910 which would be for fuel, food, drink and sightseeing. We already paid for all our accommodation either through Expedia or on AirBnB 10x nights accommodation came to just under £500. We checked our car was insured for Europe, which it was so no extra cost there, then paid for a single trip travel insurance through a local company (being located in Guernsey restricts us from applying on websites such as money supermarket for travel insurance) which cost us £41.
On the afternoon of the 10th April, we packed the car and headed to the ferry terminal, where we boarded our high speed ferry to Jersey, where we had 1 hour until we re-boarded another boat which would take us on to St Malo. In Jersey, we couldn't just re-join the check-in queue and sit quietly, no, we quickly popped to KFC (Guernsey has no fast food chains, so this is classed as a treat) and then headed to Mont Orgueil otherwise known as Gorey Castle, and Gorey Pier where we have been on several occasions before and love the cute, quaint area of Gorey with its cafés and souvenir shops seemingly clinging on to the base of the castle which in turn sits atop of a rocky crop.
After hot footing it back to the ferry terminal we relaxed on board for the hour and half, then put our clocks forward 1 hour, and we were in St Malo in time for the sun setting. We went to our hotel/motel 'Hotel Campanile' which was clean and decent size, then quickly went to the old town where we tried to grab some food but most places were already shutting for the evening.
