Car Rental: Paris to Dordogne

I enjoy driving in France and used to drive in Paris, but the last time I started my rental in Paris, it was a tense beginning of our trip. You might find the experience easier starting in a smaller city. This year we will take the TGV to Limoges and drive on to the Dordogne from there.

Last summer I made the same trip from Paris to the Dordogne. I took a 4-hour train from Paris to Brive, rented a car from Europcar (across the street from the Brive train station), and drove the remaining 1.5 hours to Beynac.

There's a Europcar office on Avenue Carnot a block or so north of the Massy-Palaiseau station on the southbound RER "B" line. You can get the "B" at Place St-Michel or the Jardins de Luxembourg close to your hotel. Massy-Palaiseau is well south of central Paris, well outside the Peripherique.

Or, use Auto Europe to find a car and location you like (whether or not you actually rent through them or directly with the rental company). I believe their website lets you find rental locations on a map. You should have many options in the southern Paris environs. Orly Airport would be another one, reached by the same RER to Antony station and then the Orlyval shuttle. .

Via Michelin can help you plan a route from wherever you get the car to wherever you want to go in the Dordogne. When we drove from Paris to Beynac a few years ago we gave it two days, breaking the journey in Bourges and also visiting the George Sand house in Nohant. But you could probably do the whole thing in a long day if you start early.

If you want to drive from Paris rather than taking a train to a smaller city and renting a car from there, I'd recommend picking up your rental car at Orly Airport. (If you were heading north, then I'd say CDG.) Having picked up a rental car at Gare Montparnasse to drive to Chartres, I agree with those who say to avoid driving in Paris. It just wasn't fun and it took more than an hour of fairly stressful driving to get to the Autoroute.

Driving right out from the airport you are right by the major highways and if you know the main cities along your desired route it will be pretty easy to follow the signage for those cities. (I realize you can use GPS, but it's nice to understand how the highway signage works too.)

Not the cheapest or most efficient but I opted to train to Bordeaux and rented there. I set the GPS to avoid toll roads and had a nice drive through wine country.