Hello, my wife and I are ending a Rick Steve's tour in Paris June 4 and staying until June 10 when we return to USA from Amsterdam. I booked an additional night in Hotel Beaugency in Paris for June 4. We would like to rent a car in Paris to travel to Les Baux De Provence (Caen / Normandy) then return the car to Paris on June 7 and take a train to Belgium. Stay in Brugge June 7 and 8 and then take a train to Amsterdam and stay the night of the 9th there. Where should we rent the car from that would be easy to get to both from the hotel and to the train station? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated . Thanks, Joe
Posted by
Portlandia
3313 posts
Les Baux is far to the south of Paris in Provence. Your post implies you may be asking about somewhere in Normandy. More info about where you want to go and what you want to see?
Posted by
Sacramento, California U.S.A.
10600 posts
Les Baux de Provence is about 450 miles from Paris. It is nowhere near Normandy. Normandy isn't even on the way to Les Baux. If you are in fact wanting to travel all the way to Provence to see Les Baux (not worth it in my opinion, as you can see it in a few hours) it would be much faster to take a train from Paris to Avignon and rent a car there. If you are wanting to go to Normandy you can rent a car in Paris and drive, or do what many people do and train from Paris to Caen. You can rent a car there. You don't have time to go to Normandy and Provence. A clarification of your plans would be helpful.
Posted by
Downingtown, USA
2449 posts
If you plan to go to Normandy at this time would not even consider it as this is 70th anniversary of D-day and would imagine it will be super crowded and imagine security will be extreme. Just something to keep in mind.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
Whether your destination is Les Beaux, or Caen, or Bayeux, we agree with advice to take the train most of the way. There are a few direct trains each day from Paris to Bayeux which take 2 hours, don't require advance reservations, and cost about $50 per person in 2nd class.
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Let's assume Les Baux simply means Bayeux -- not a big issue.
That's exactly not where you want to go, initially. The reason being that there is exactly one car rental place in the town - - Hertz at the gas station which is four or five miles from the train station. What that's going to do is make you pay for a train, taxi, car all in the same day. Not a good deal.
Which leaves Caen where there's several car rental places just out the door. Great, now you get to pay for a train and a car on the same day. The train up will cost whatever somebody says it does and take two hours or so.
I can, and have beat, the train to Caen after dropping somebody at Gare St Lazare who wanted the 'train experience'. Obviously they had to do some fiddling around to find the platform, get tickets, have a time buffer. I pulled out when they got out of the car and had had coffee and was waiting for them when they walked out of the Caen station. The drive up in a small car will cost about thirty bucks in tolls and close to the same in gas.
Bayeux is about thirty minutes down the road.
The textbook solution is not always the best - - in time or money.