France May 29-30 holidays scheduling snafus cars / trains

Train tickets for May 30 aren't on sale yet. We don't know what the full schedule will be.

How much was the one-way fee within France? Normally, it's 25-4- euros.

Get to your car drop destination the evening before to drop the car. I would not drop the car unattended.

Have you check what's available via AutoEurope.com? They are a consolidator that offers rentals from the major companies in France. I used them many times.

Yes, we went to Auto Europe first and kept getting the message that no rental car outlets were open May 30. Only at CDG. After my original post above, we thought to take the train from Rouen to Le Havre, rent & drop off in Le Havre. In June, take the train back to Gare du Nord and take the fast train to Brussels to get to Bruges ultimately. Unfortunately, we got the same message that no rental locations in Le Havre are open on May 30! Sigh.

Are you planning to stay in Rouen? You absolutely do not want a rental in Rouen. Pick it up when you plan to depart. We arrived in Rouen on a Friday. It had full on rush hour traffic, which surprised me; and parking is pretty much non existent. Permits are required for street parking; so you must park in a 24 hour lot; and Rouen is very charming and walkable though you would want a taxi from the train station.

Frankly, I'd get over the one way return fee, which I recall was far less than 100 euro when we did it last spring. Dropping outside of France would be expensive, but not within France. We picked up in Rennes and dropped off at Lille train station. We had a similar situation as it was a Sunday, so the rental agency was only open for 3 hours and train schedules were limited. So coordinating it and making our train to Ghent took coordination. If that's the case for you with tight schedule, just drop off the car the night before and stay near the train station if it's an early morning train or near the nice city center for the night.

Sometimes money buys convenience, going to/from CDG would be a waste of time and too much effort for our taste.

Cris,
Drop off fees within France have always been pretty cheap, IMO. I just consider it as part of the car rental cost. As others have said, as long as you are in the same country it is not bad, especially in a large(ish) city. If your pickup or drop-off is in a very small town, that may present a problem for them in returning the car to where you rented it, but I have never encountered this. I concur that if you have an early train from Rouen, I would drop off the car the day before and enjoy a nice evening in Rouen before catching that early train the next morning. That saves you the Rouen parking costs as well, and you can take the train to Lille without going through Paris, if that is what your early morning departure from Rouen is for.
I have never heard of Auto Slash, so can't comment on that. Best of luck with your planning!

Thanks everyone. After a few more hours this afternoon, we figured out the problem. When we used a time when the rental car office was not open, the result was the office was closed. We had interpreted that to mean because of the national holiday. Turns out the offices are closed between noon and 2 pm daily. We've now adjusted our pick up and drop off times to when the Hertz Rouen office is open. We decided to avoid the one-way fee (tried several different locations but exorbitant at 200E) and return the car to Hertz Rouen. The car is still expensive at 658 Euros so we use Auto Slash to watch for price drops. Only 2 issues remain:
1. The Hertz Rouen location is a good 10-minute cab ride across the river to the train station. Do-able but an additional cost and time complication in 2 directions. We will absorb it. The EuropCar location at the train station shows them not open so we've written an inquiry to them before we rule them out.
2. Still nowhere to leave a suitcase upon arrival in Vernon-Givenchy (from CDG). The Nanny Bag locations (2) are not open when we arrive. If we wait an hour and a half (after our train arrives), we miss a good amount of early morning (quieter) garden time. We've written to Nanny Bags to see if they have any ideas. Otherwise, all set. Thanks again.