getting to Sainte Mere Eglise, Normandy from Eurostar arrival in Paris - timing?

You might want to take the train from Paris to somewhere in Normandy (probable Caen as it's easy to get a car there), then drive to St Mere Eglise. Without knowing when you are going it's hard to say if you'll get there before dark - in mid summer you would. You can still return the car at CDG, within France there shouldn't be a drop charge for a different location (if there is one it will be small).

Ack!

Quit thinking.

If you go out to the airport to pick up a car, you're going to come right back to within a couple miles of Nord. Plus, you're going to have to go through three or four freeway interchanges that could screw you up before you even get to Paris's northwest outer quadrant.

There's car rental places at Nord. Come out of the parking garage, head west to the first fat street and turn north. Get on the peripherique going counter-clockwise and follow the signs toward Rouen until you get established on the A-14 (three miles?).

You'll be in Sainte Mere in a small tad over three hours. Add two more hours for picking up at Roissy, probably more if you cross-town to Staint- Lazare and catch the train up to Caen (which is the only viable place to rent a car outside of Paris on that track.

Thank you so much for the quick reply!! I had been worried that time from train station to airport would take more time that we would want - didn't realize that we would be coming right back by the station. I will look into renting a car by the station. We had hoped to have easy roads to get adjusted to traveling in France (without knowing the language). Guess we will hope for good directions as we head out of town.
Jackie

Repeating: QUIT THINKING!

The cars are under the station.

All roads are four lane after the first two blocks and freeway after the first two miles until you're past Caen.

City/town names look the same in French as they do in English. Distances in kilometers are not hard to figure out. Arrows are arrows.

Figure on cash for the toll booths, so have a small bundle of euro. Use the lane with the human dude icon.

Allow an hour for the RER connection from Gare du Nord to CDG. The airport is huge, so be certain in which terminal your car pick-up is scheduled. www.viamichelin.com suggests that driving on the faster roads between CDG and Ste-Mere Eglise takes 3.5 hours. That probably means you won't arrive before dark.

There's not enough information to guess darkness since no month is mentioned.

Paris sunset right now is probably close to seven, twilight would end about an hour later.

Solstice sunset is at around ten.

A reservation for one terminal at the airport will be honored at any other terminal. All cars come out of a common pool. Terminal 2 is convenient to both the rer/tgv station and the car lots.

Thank you again for your comments. I think that we will try the Gare du Nord after your description, Ed. We have no trouble driving in Ireland and England, so we will just take a big swallow and press forward. We will be in France the last couple of days of March and the first few of April.
Jackie

Getting there by dark will depend on exactly which day. The clocks spring forward in France at the end of March, so Paris sunset is at 19:17 on Saturday the 29th but over an hour later the next day, at 20:18 (8:18pm).