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Train and rental Car HELP PLEASE

I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out how to travel from London to the closet train station to Orscholtz, Germany that has car rentals (need two cars, we have 8 people). This is my problem...I'm leaving London Premier Hotel County Hall on a Saturday In the summer to head to Germany, we need to figure out what train to take, where to end in Germany close to Orscholtz that has a car rental place. I think from what i'm reading is that it takes maybe 4 hours to get to aachen, but the car rental place closes at noon. I'm finding that most car rental places are either closed or are only open until noon, which is conflicting with getting there on time. Can anyone tell me what train to take out of London, what city to end up in with a car rental place that will still be open. From there we will be driving to Orscholtz and ending up in Munich eventually to drop off the car and take again some train to Paris. We are going with a group of 8 (adults, and children). I was given the responsibility of figuring this out, having never been to either country!! (All hotels have been booked, can't change the dates). Thank you, Thank you for any help :)

Posted by
32206 posts

Tiffany, The first step will be to travel from London / St. Pancras to Paris / Gare du Nord via EuroStar. Significant savings are possible if tickets are booked well in advance. Have a look at the excellent Man in Seat 61 website for the details. Note that you MUST check-in for EuroStar departures at least 30-minutes prior to departure or you'll lose your seat. You'll also have to go through airport-style security and French Passport control at St. Pancras, so it would be prudent to leave lots of time. From Paris there are likely a couple of options. You could consider taking the train from Paris Est to Trier (about 3 hours, 1 change) and then renting the cars there. Driving time from Trier to Orsholz looks to be under an hour. For car rental in Germany, I'd suggest giving gemut.com a call on their toll free line. I'm sure they'll be able to provide some great advice. At the end of your trip, you could drop the cars back in Trier and then take the train back to Paris. I'm sure that Lee or one of the other will be able to offer some further suggestions on the best route in Germany. Good luck and happy travels!

Posted by
7209 posts

First of all, do you REALLY need cars? Can your plans be accomplished with just trains? You'll save yourself some serious Euros and headaches if you can ditch those boat anchors...i mean cars :-) Second, why are all of your hotels non-changeable? Did you book the pay upfront with no changes rate or are you saying it would be too overwhelming of a task to modify your hotel dates?

Posted by
11 posts

Haha, to overwhelming to rebook and modify dates, seriously :) We are driving because we wanted to take our time in germany and stop at towns as we drive :)