Pick Up Rental Car - Paris - in town vs airport

Sorry. I didn't want to bore everyone with irrelevant details, but since you asked. We are staying in Paris for a few nights. Then we are picking up a rental car (in the city vs Orly Airport, depending upon recommendations from this group) and traveling outside Paris for 11 days. Then we return the car to the place we picked it up. Then we will proceed to Gare du Nord and travel by train to Belgium. I am simply asking which of the two car rental locations would be the less stressful of the options.

We considered an option similar to what you described but opted for this one instead. We will be overseas for several months, and this is the first leg of the journey. At that point in the Odyssey we will be carrying a lot more luggage than we typically do. After France, we will be with family in Belgium, and will downsize our luggage situation as/when we venture out from Belgium over the next couple of months. We didn't want to take a cab to a train and then a train to a town and then a cab to a car rental place. We are not young and my husband is not really a great walker any more, so simplifying logistics around moving from place to place is always an important consideration, which is why we made these plans - cab to car rental - car rental to adventure - adventure to car rental drop off - cab to Gare du Nord and north to Liege. Also, for the car we wanted, Lille was not an option for us. Thanks!

Tom - I would rather perform open heart surgery on myself than drive anywhere near Gare du Nord! While in Paris we are staying in the 4th, and it would have been closer to pick up a car there, but NO WAY. Looking at the map, it doesn't look too terrible to get out of the city from Ave du Maine. But I was glancing through R. Steve's latest Paris guide and he raves about how easy it is to pick up a rental at Orly, so I thought I would throw myself at this group's mercy! :-)

To me the easiest overall way to do this and minimize any driving within Paris as well as ease of pick up and drop off is to pick up the car at Orly. You take a fixed rate taxi to the airport. Then when you return you take another fixed rate taxi to Gare du Nord.

I drive in NYC about once a week. But I'll never drive in downtown Paris again. Setting aside the fierce drivers, there are a lot of one way streets with only one travel lane. It happened that a dumpster truck began to make a container-exchange while I was in the Hertz place returning the car. But when I came out, the street had already been impassable for 15 minutes, I think. Also, the Hertz garage had an incredibly narrow spiral ramp, and I had to go down to -6 to find an empty, microscopic, stall to back the car into. The car was not inspected by Hertz while I was present ... ... ... But I did not get a bill - this was years ago, before phony repairs became a profit-center.

It was naive to think of dropping off our luggage at our Paris hotel and then dropping off the car nearby. (Had driven from St. Pierre des Corps through the Loire and Normandy.) I had to go around the Arc de Triomphe about 4 times before I could work my way to the exterior line and exit on my street.

Tim, I am having a minor empathy-induced panic attack after reading your comment. Fixed rate cab - hotel to Orly and then 11 days later, Orly to Gare du Nord. Final answer. Thanks for all your helpful insights. Even the panic attack was worth it.

Orly. We've had memorable experiences picking up in Montparnasse. We know this southern area on both sides of the perifierique very well to a point where we don't need a map or gps. My husband grew up around there, and we lived in that area. I used to drive our little car all over Paris. It used to be easy, but now it's constant traffic jams getting to and from the ring road. Our last time dropping at Montparnasse, we were stuck behind a garbage truck in the 15th. So our last vacation trips from the US, we took a taxi to Orly and picked up there.

One note: even picking up at Orly, you still have autoroutes merging and splitting.

My answer to this would depend on which direction you would be heading as you leave Paris. If you would be heading south, then Orly would work, but if you're driving in any other direction forget Orly.

We nearly always pick up our car at CDG Airport and we always head west on the francilienne. Even though we have done this many many times we still screw up, but it's not hard to get back on track. However, a few times our flight landed at Orly and this was the worst driving we had ever encountered in France. Take a look at the map for a close-up of the roads in that area, which were jam-packed with vehicles moving at top speed every time we took them.

Traffic in Paris itself is much slower.

What you also could do is pick up/drop down at CDG, and then take a train to Belgium from there. There are direct trains from CDG to Brussels all throughout the day.

Tom - I would rather perform open heart surgery on myself than drive anywhere near Gare du Nord!
I'm a veteran of driving near Gare du Nord. We rented a car at CDG and drove to Loches the spend a week there. We then returned the car to Gare du Nord and took the Eurostar to London.

Tom's description is pretty spot on. It was very hard to find the entrance to the Hertz lot even with GPS. You then drive down several levels until you reach either the 8th or 9th Circle of Hell. It was unnerving to just park the car and walk away, Luckily we didn't get a surprise later.

Now that I've agreed with you about what to avoid, I wish I could help with a positive suggestion, but I have no other experience. I do recommend you take an evening ride through the streets of Paris in a vintage Citreon 2CV. We had a great time!

Crumbs and WengenK have good points. I only hinted at the merging and dividing autoroutes, but Crumbs is right, it's done at autoroute speed while you are entering and it's possible that you may have to get over two, three or four lanes when you get on, or you could be fine in the right lane. We don't know where you are going.

WengenK is right about the trains from CDG, an easier airport to enter and exit with a car. Those are SNCF trains, not Thalys.
So, if you tell us your itinerary, I think we can help you better.

Generally, I'd say don't rent in Paris (or at the airport). I pick a spot near the area I'll be driving and take either a train or plane and pick a car up there. Examples, want to go to Normandy? Train to Rouen and rent a car there. Champagne? Train to Reims. Provence? Train or plane to Avignon. Riviera? Plane to Nice.

I choose train or plane based on distance (in hours) traveled. I try to keep my legs whether driving, train or car under four hours. It's less draining to keep your travel time on any particular day reasonable, for me that rule of thumb is four hours. You still have to check-in/out, find your way, find meals, pack/unpack, etc. If a train takes more than four hours, I'll try to book an Air France flight.