Help with destination/transportation decision

Looks reasonable. Drives are mostly on motorways, except where you want to deviate. Weather? Probably no snow storms, if that is what you are worried about.

Consider staying in Strasbourg or one of the lovely wine villages instead of Colmar.

Strasbourg with a car is problematic. Consider Colmar and visiting Strasbourg by train.

I like this plan Christine! I think either direction works; I'd base it on flight prices and times.

We took a couple of walking tours of Geneva and found the history fascinating. Dijon is high on my list for a long stay.

Weren't you thinking about Spain or am I confused?

This sounds lovely, and I'd want a car for this too. One consideration is the harvest dates. I'd do Dijon and Colmar earlier to have a better chance of avoiding the harvest. It used to be mid-October, but it could be moving forward with climate change. Otherwise, you'll be behind slow tractors (LOL but it makes a good photo) but more significant is that the small wineries may not have time to receive visitors. We ran into that in Germany once.

Sorry for not responding here sooner!
Thanks all for your encouragement and suggestions.

Suki & Sam-I think Colmar will be easier with a car than Strasbourg and we may or may not visit Strasbourg by train. We’ll enjoy just poking around countryside/wine villages.

Bets- Thanks for the harvest timing tip. Our dates are 9/25-10/10- so in Colmar/Dijon 9/29-10/5. Can’t really change that- obligations at home.
Don’t really need to visit wineries. We’ll do any tasting while in town, not on the road. We live in farm country so tractors on the road is normal to us ;)

CaliMom- We did go to Spain! Got back about 2 weeks ago. Had a practically perfect trip- unexpected heat wave was not so great.
Dijon looks wonderful, too bad RS doesn’t cover at all. I look for his advice on “arrriving by…”, connections, etc. Anyway I’ve booked Hotel des Ducs w/reserved parking - if it’s a pain to come and go from town we’ll find plenty to do while there.

This is our plan now:

9/25 Fly to Zurich
9/26 Arrive 8 am-Lucerne 3 nights
Pick up car as we leave Fri am
9/29 Colmar 4 nights
Day trips
10/3 Dijon 3 nights
Day trips?
10/6 Annecy- 3 nights
Day trip Chamomix?
10/9 Geneva- drop car 1 night
10/10 Fly home 11am from GVA

14 nights

Should Dijon have 4 nights, then Annecy 2 nights?
I really don’t want to add any more nights and we do have to stay that 1 night Geneva at end- either in center or at airport.
Trying to get the biggest bang out of car rental.

Anyway- still some details to work out.

I think your plan is fine as it is, 3 nights in Dijon is enough for Beaune + Dijon + driving thru the vineyards, and you need 3 nights in Annecy to be able to head to Chamonix.

Just make sure your rental car contract allows you to drive to other countries. I rented a car from Hertz in Arnhem last March, and even though I would be returning it to The Netherlands, they specifically stated I could not drive it to or through any other country—even other EU countries (it would have been nice to pop into Germany on my route).

having a car for this sort of meander is lovely -- we miss the days of driving through Tuscany or France -- there are so many things you can only do with a car. My husband can no longer drive and I don't want to at my age in a foreign country -- so now we do it by train and tend to stay for extended times in one place. All this is good, but we are grateful we drove and did those kinds of trips while we could.