We are planning a road trip in France in the spring. We will be leaving from Paris and going to Normandy, Brittany, the Loire Valley, and the Dordogne. We really, really do not want to drive in Paris. Heading west to Giverny/Normandy, where is a good place to pick up a car? Suggestions? We also will be a doing a car drop off somewhere in Dordogne region or Loire and taking the TGV back to Paris for departure. Any suggestions/advice is much appreciated. This forum is so great!
Sheila
We were going the other direction in May. Dropped our rental off in Mantes-la-Jolie which is a town west of Paris and a half hour drive east of Giverny. The rental companies are near the train station. Take the train from Paris to Mantes-la-Jolie. We were motivated by the very same concern of not wanting to drive in Paris.
BTW - Giverny is marvelous - look at B&B's for lodging. We stayed at Le Clos Fleuri.
We did that trip several years ago. We were going to take the train to Rouen and pick a car up there at the train station. But, because of a holiday the car rental was closed and we picked up the car at CDG. Either will work for a trip from Paris to Normandy.
For our Normandy trip, we picked our car up in Caen. It was easy to get out of.
Separate trip - but we picked up and dropped off our car in Tours for the Loire Valley. It was easy enough as well.
But if you are arriving on a weekend, make sure that the rental agency will be open on your arrival. Many offices open for only a half day on Saturday and are closed on Sunday.
and if you don't have an EU driving license you will need an International Driving Permit - IDP - as well as your home license. Other methods of complying with the law are possible but an IDP is the easiest, cheapest, and likely fastest. If you are North American, the AAA/CAA can help with that for around a $20 bill.
We arrived at Quistreham (the ferry port) from Portsmouth and took the shuttle to Caen where there are 3 or4 rental agencies right across the street from the Caen railroad station. We've also done the Eurostar and after a couple nights in Paris, took the train to Caen. Baueux is about 15 miles from Caen and an easy drive. We stayed at bandbnormandie.com after one night in Bayeux and had easy drives to the D Day beaches from the B and B, La Ferme duPressoir, right outside Villiers-Bocage. From there we drove about 90 miles via the four-lane motorway to Mt. St. Michel, then later around the bay to Cancale Brittany, about 20 miles or so, for lunch on the waterfront. After touring Normandy and Brittany we returned the car at Caen and took the train back to Paris. We booked with AutoEurope and drove a 5 speed stick shift Peugeot around Normandy and beyond. There are not a lot of automatic transmission rental vehicles so you must specify one if you can't drive a standard shift and you may or may not get one with automatic transmission if they are already rented out. Good luck.
You can pick one up in Caen. We are picking ours up at CDG and then heading to Bayeux without heading into Paris. I would have preferred to pick it up in Caen, but logistically it just wasn't working. So, CDG it is. We are dropping it in Chartres.
I took a train from Paris to Rouen and picked up a car there. Rouen is a little confusing to navigate but not nearly as difficult as Paris.
I'd probably visit Dordogne then go back to Loire. Turn in your car in Orleans or Tours (depending on where you end Loire) and train to Paris from there.
If possible, you should try to see at least some of Brittany. There are very interesting sights and really nice towns, with much fewer tourists, in Brittany. If you went to, say, St. Malo, Dinan and Vannes and Carnac It would be worth the small amount of detour (though those aren't the least touristed areas of Brittany).
But if you are arriving on a weekend, make sure that the rental agency will be open on your arrival. Many offices open for only a half day on Saturday and are closed on Sunday.
This is good advice. Last May we stayed a week in Loches, then took the Eurostar to London. Our plan was to train to Tours, pick up a car there, then return it in Tours and train back to Paris. I did some checking since we were arriving on a Saturday and returning to Paris the next Sunday. The rental offices were closed in Tours over the weekend.
We ended up renting the car at CDG, driving down, the returning the car at Gare du Nord. It was not an ideal situation, but we managed. I never in a million years thought I'd drive the streets of Paris on a Sunday afternoon. I lived to tell the tale!
