Hertz Rental Gare du Nord

I think my rental was with Europcar, but the company is irrelevant when deciding to rent at Gare du Nord. We arrived by Eurostar from London and we were going to Bayeux. The rental cars desks are in the lower level of the station, but the cars are actually located about a block away in a large garage. We had to go down to -5 level and there wasn't any lighting. Fortunately we had flashlights on our phones, but it was pitch black with out them and difficult to determine if there was any damage to the car to take note of. Fortunately when we were able to really inspect the car we saw it was in good shape. It was a Friday and we drove off around 4:00. Guess what, just like everywhere else people are leaving town for the weekend! No big deal though. It just added time to our trip. Using GPS certainly helped. I would certainly do it again. I should note that this rental occurred after I had been to Paris 3 times, so I wasn't totally uncomfortable driving there.

Doug mac - getting out of (and then back in to) the rental car parking garage at Gare du Nord isn’t much fun, but it is doable. It will help if you have a good navigator (so all the pressure isn’t just on you as the driver) and you spend some time with the maps beforehand. Also making sure you know what roads you want to get on to get out of Paris and knowing that the highways here are not labeled North/South East/West , but rather by the names of cities along the way . Similarly, the Peripherique (the Ring Road) doesn’t go by N/S/W/E , but by Interior and Exterior.

Of course GPS helps with all of this, but studying ahead will be useful too.

Thanks Andrea, that's very reassuring.

We have a choice of flights that will land either at 7:05 or 9:15. The 7:05 would be preferable. That way, we could get into town, drop off the luggage, head to St. Pancras and catch the Eurostar that afternoon. We could sneak in a nap on the train. We've ridden the Eurostar before. We could find a hotel near Gare du Nord, get settled in, then pick up the car in the morning. That would give us an evening in Paris to grab dinner and still get to bed early.

It would make for a long day, but we would stay up that long in either London or Paris. The last time we were in London, we didn't get to bed until 9:00 that night. We prefer to push through jet lag. If we stayed near Gare du Nord, we'd be 5 stations away from the Cite stop. I know exactly where that is. Strolling around Isle de la Cite for a little while that evening would be nice.

Thanks Kim, that's great advice.

Getting out of and into the parking deck at Rome FCO during construction wasn't much fun either.

I'll have a great navigator helping out. Also, we normally do exactly what you recommend - combining a good map with a GPS. I ordered an Italy/Greece map for our Garmin and before we left I entered a number of addresses of places we planned to go, including our Tuscan agriturismo. As soon as I got the car, I hooked up the Garmin and recalled the saved address of our agriturismo. The Garmin took us straight to it.

Another nice thing about going ahead to Paris would be we could scout out the area, including the parking garage. The nice thing is we will be heading out on a weekday and returning early Sunday.

On a side note, I went to check Eurostar prices. Right now there's a mess because there's an industrial action. Check in at Gare du Nord is running 5+ hours. Yikes!

I've picked up a car at Gare du Nord and driven it out to Burgundy. After you've left the train and reached the main station, turn right and the cars are downstairs (Niveau -1). The counters are right there, my car was further below (I think it was Hertz, maybe they're using a garage outside now). No problem with the lighting. You exit up a spiral ramp which spills you out, dizzy, to Blvd de la Chappelle, a big E-W street north of the station. From there your GPS should do the rest, but pre-study with a map, and maybe some time spent with Google Earth Street View, would be helpful. Most likely you'll want the Peripherique Exterieur (eastbound on the north side of Paris) and around to whatever exit works for Loches.

Congratulations to your wife, and I hope your grandson's having a great time with his year in France. I remember your earlier posts about his trip.

Now this is really funny, because when I was composing my response to Doug Mac, I wrote a part about how the Peripherique runs “east” or “west” differently depending on whether you're on the north or south side of town — but then I deleted the whole section because i wasn't sure I had it right.

But I really think that one on the Peripherique Exterieuron the upper/northern side of Paris would be going Westbound, would one not?? See this is what I mean by confusing!!!

From Wikipedia:

The Périphérique consists of two concentric carriageways: the intérieur ("inner ring") and the extérieur ("outer ring"). Vehicles travel clockwise on the inner ring and counterclockwise on the outer ring. Some stretches of the road are sometimes referred to by cardinal direction. For example, in the southern half of the highway, the "inner ring" is designated as the Périphérique Ouest ("Western Ring") as traffic flows westbound whereas the "outer ring" is designated as the Périphérique Est ("Eastern Ring") as traffic flows eastbound. In the northern half, these designations are reversed.

I don´t think anyone could write a more obtuse description of the périphérique. The périphérique is nothing other than a highway loop around the outer edge of Paris.

However, from Gare du Nord, I would take Boulevard de Magenta, to Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, and proceed south to rue St Jacque, rue du Générale Leclerc to Porte d´Orléans and join A6. It should take about 30 minutes to A6 and you never join the périphérique.

Remember cars entering the roadway on the right have priority and do not use the bus lanes.

Definitely follow Tocard’s route. The streets are mostly one-way. We lived in the southern suburbs but had business near the Gare du Nord and that was our route in general. There will probably be a bottleneck at Alesia but either ride it out or detour via René Coté at Denfert. Going to the peripherique from Gare du Nord is counterproductive.

Thanks Tocard and Bets. Here's what Google recommends:

Get on Bd Périphérique from Boulevard de Magenta, Boulevard Beaumarchais, Boulevard Bourdon, Quai de la Rapée and Quai de Bercyote

Does anyone have a recommendation for a modest hotel within walking distance of the station? We don't need anything fancy, just a place to lay our heads for the night. I've Googled and there seems to be a lot of choices.

Ibis on rue St. Laurent next to Gare de l'Est.

Google puts you on the périphérique at the Eastern edge, or 3:00 on a dial, whereas Tocard and I direct you to 6:00, the southern edge just a few meters from the turn off onto the A6.