Car rental dropoff in Southern France

I stayed in Nimes a couple of nights and then dropped my Europcar at the train station there. The drop spot is in a parking garage behind the train station, so you have to look for signs to the parking garage, and turn under a railroad bridge to get there (if approaching from the city center). It doesn't say Europcar until you get inside. I considered Nimes to require a lot of suburban round-about driving to get into town, but that was specifically coming from Avignon. The drive to Montpellier looks like it could be simpler if you stick to the autoroute toll road for as far as you can.

I would recommend Nimes if only because I found the train station in Montpellier extremely hard to find and get into. They do have a rental car drop off behind the station, then a bit of a walk. I was just picking up and dropping off people, but had a dickens of a time finding the train station (this was pre-GPS, however)).

I would say whichever city has the best train schedule to Barcelona would be my choice. Finding the train station in Nimes is not too difficult once you get into the center, but (as mentioned above) locating the dropoff spot is a little tricky, as is navigating in from the suburbs. I've driven into Montpellier, but not to the train station.

We have found Avignon to be very easy & only 100 yards from the high speed train stop.