Barcelona

Barcelona has two jetties for car ferries and they are not next to each other. Terminal Z sits at Drassanes on the north side of the Moll de Barcelona; Terminal T is at Moll de Sant Bertran on the other side, in the Sants-Montjuïc district.

Different operators use different terminals, and the walk between them with luggage is not short. Give a taxi the terminal name from your booking, not "the ferry port" — and allow for the fact that the cruise terminals are on the same stretch of water again.

Very few Mediterranean ports let you choose between the Balearics, Italy and Africa on the same day. That makes Barcelona unusually good as a hinge in a longer route rather than as a start or finish.

The combinations people miss: Barcelona to Nador or Tanger Med and onward into Morocco by road; or Barcelona to Genoa and down the Italian coast without driving through France. Both replace a great deal of motorway.

Flights to Palma and Ibiza are cheap and frequent, so the sea route only makes sense for a specific reason — and there usually is one. The ferry takes vehicles, has no baggage limit, and lands you in the port town rather than at an airport twenty minutes out.

For a family with a car, or anyone moving more than a suitcase, that changes the arithmetic completely. For two people with hand luggage, fly.

Tanger Med is the main Moroccan gateway and Barcelona is the long way to it — but it is also the way that skips the entire drive down Spain. From Barcelona to Algeciras is roughly a thousand kilometres of motorway before you even board.

The trade-off is time at sea against time on the road, and for anyone starting in France, northern Italy or Catalonia itself, the ship usually wins. Compare it against Almería, which is the direct route if your destination is eastern Morocco rather than Tangier.

As on every route in this part of the Mediterranean, the constraint is car space rather than seats, and the peak is the summer crossing season when the Moroccan community in Europe travels. Late July and August, in both directions, book out well ahead.

The Italian and Balearic routes peak on the ordinary holiday calendar instead, which means the port has two separate rush periods that overlap in August and make it the month to avoid if you have any flexibility.

The terminals are at the foot of the city, close to Drassanes and the bottom of La Rambla, with the metro a short walk from Terminal Z. For a port of this size that is close to unheard of, and it is the reason arriving by train and continuing by sea works here.

Barcelona–Sants station is about twenty minutes away and the airport around twenty-five, though traffic near the port in August makes both numbers optimistic.

The Moroccan and Italian routes run year round; the Balearic services thin outside summer but never stop, because the islands need them. The Sardinian link is the most seasonal of the group.

May, June and September give the full network with availability. If you are travelling with a vehicle in August, book months rather than weeks ahead.