Zonnebeke

I will be traveling to Belgium from the UK in August to attend a WWI Memorial unvailing in Zonnebreke....I was thinking of crossing from Dover to Calais and getting a rental car to drive to Zonnebreke....any suggestions on the Channel crossing or renting a car and driving in Belgium.....I am from the states.....

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I think you may mean Zonnebeke (9 km from Ieper), where the Passchendaele Museum is, see greatwar.co.uk/westfront/…streekmus.htm

If so, this might have been better placed in the Ypres forum - Tripadvisor having chosen to use the French name.

I%26#39;m not an expert on driving or, therefore, on renting cars, but if you are coming from London or Ashford you could consider taking the Eurostar - passenger train through the Channel Tunnel, see www.eurostar.com - from Waterloo International to Lille and renting a car in Lille. Zonnebeke is only 51 km from there in the direction of Tourcoing and then Ieper, mostly on the E17 (according to Via Michelin, 36 minutes%26#39; drive).

You can make your own comparisons for car rental on travel-library.com/carrental/…

Alternately, you can take a ferry from Dover to Dunkerque (FR, 60 km from Zonnebeke) or Ramsgate to Oostende (BE, 81 km from Zonnebeke) (www.directferries.co.uk/dunkerque_ferry.htm) as a foot passenger and rent a car on arrival, again see for example travel-library.com/carrental/….

For the record, Calais is 103 km away from Zonnebeke so further than either Dunkerque or Oostende, although this disadvantage might be cancelled out by more frequent/convenient sailings, you can check on directferries.co.uk/dover_calais_ferry.htm.

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If you hire a car in France for example it will cost a fortune to leave it in another country, and even more expensive to drop a British car off in France or Belgium and indeed vice versa.

Probably cheapest option is foot passenger Dover to Calais and rent from Calais port (not downtown) and return same location then foot passenger back to the UK.

August is peak rates on the boats and can cost with a car around $400-500 if you just turn up and go. As it is also the rental agencies peak times so make sure you reserve in advance for your car.

Check out rates with P%26amp;O Ferries www.poferries.com or SeaFrance www.seafrance.com and if you decide to come over in a UK vehicle look at Eurotunnel www.eurotunnel.com (no recommended if it’s your first time driving a right hand drive car over here)

Ferries take about 90 mins and the tunnel 35 but Eurotunnel do not take foot passengers.

Don%26#39;t want to state the obvious here so sorry in advance but you know most of our cars are manual transmission and again if you need an automatic you%26#39;ll have to specify in advance.

Driving from Calais to Zonnebeke is easy and should take you no longer than 1 hour as it’s 60 miles away and the region is pretty quiet and easy to drive in

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Driving in that part of Belgium is really relaxed. Even the highway from Calais upto Veurne, and further on the road to Zonnebeke are usually very quiet. Having a car will give more freedom anyway to get to Zonnebeke and maybe see some more of the WWI sites in the Westhoek.

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