Transportation from Venice, Italy to Menton, France?

There may be car rental in Menton but I would expect that the choice of car would be limited if there is. The big cities (in relative terms) in the area are Monte Carlo in Monaco (5 miles) and Nice in France (16 miles). They would likely meet your needs. The same train which takes you into France continues along the extremely beautiful shore to both.

When is your trip? Certain times of the year walking can be faster than driving in certain parts.

Where do you want to drive to on this road trip section? How many days have you got?

I go there frequently.

Your profile is silent on your nationality, but if North American each driver will require an IDP for driving in France, or a notarized official translation of your drivers licenses. $15pp at the AAA or CAA is usually much easier.

Train Venice S Lucia to Milano Centrale then train to Ventimiglia then train just across the border to Menton. There are a very few (and more expensive) trains direct from Milan to Nice. Otherwise it is simple changes.

Yes. Europcar has an office in Menton. I'm not sure other companies do to (Hertz doesn't). It's not a small village and it's a prime (and beautiful) destination. I always used to stay in Menton when I used to go to Montecarlo in youth (prettier and less expensive than Monaco). If you have the time spend at least a day there.

To find the appropriate office locations, also for your drop off go here.
https://www.europcar.com/station-finder

I usually use a consolidator to get best deals.
www.autoeurope.com
www.kemwel.com
(Both now part of the same corporate group)
Choose as pickup and drop off locations the addresses you find in the Europcar website above. The Europcar deals will then appear in the consolidators' webpage.

To reach Menton by train from Venice you will need to change trains in Milan and Ventimiglia.
Go to the Trenitalia website or to the Deutsch Bahn site for train schedules.

Frank's answer is on the other copy of this question. double posting is so much fun.

Thank you everyone for you answers. I must apologize for the double post. I have no idea how I did that. But If you knew me on a computer it's easy to understand. We didn't want to go to Nice to rent the car so we wouldn't have to back track but it looks like it's only a few mules back to Menton anyway. So my question now is, approximately how long a train ride is it from Venice to Nice or would we be better off to Fly? We have no idea how long it would to take to drive from Menton to Marseille but we want to have enough time to get an overall view of the cities and villages along the way maybe stopping at some for a few hours or even a day. When we get to Marseille we'd like to have enough time to check out two or three villages in Provence before returning rental Car. We have a Hotel reservation in Marseille the night of Oct 10. The tour in Venice ends Oct 4 in the am. I hope this will give us enough time to see something besides a blur as we buzz through.

It's a long train journey from Venice to Menton (or to Nice), with at least one change (in Milan). About 8 hours (base/2nd class price is 89 euro o/w to Nice).
If you can find a flight that is convenient, you will save a lot of time.
EasyJet is the only airline company that flies non stop from Venice (VCE) to Nice (NCE) and also to Marseille (MRS).

Menton to Marseille is 2 to 2.5 hours by car. You could get off the train in Menton, spend a night, order your car from Europcar. If you pay through Autoeurope they'll have what you ordered or bring it from their larger agencies.

In the US IDPs are now $20 plus photos.

As I am renting in France soon, wonder what "an official notarized driver license" is? Actually that's not quite what the French government says,
Si vous venez en France pour un court séjour (pour des vacances par exemple), vous pouvez conduire avec votre permis. Il doit être valide et être rédigé en français ou accompagné de sa traduction ou d'un permis international.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1459

So I take it that a xerox of your license with English words circled and an arrow pointing to the French equivalent ("expires" circled with an arrow pointing to "expire"), etc. is sufficient? I sit next to a notary at work so getting this translation done and notarized is at least an hour quicker than getting an IDP and of course free.

Note that an odd additional requirement of some agencies (at least Budget) is that for those with driver licenses that are less than one year old you must also bring your expired one (!) to prove that you are not a new driver. Never heard of that one before, so I have a new license and will have to bring an expired one?

tom:
A notarization in English by an American notary would not be probably be acceptable in France.
You can have it notarized with a sworn translation at the local French Consulate, which for Minnesota is in Chicago.
I don't know how far it is from you. I think they do it for free. That way you save $20.
http://www.consulfrance-chicago.org/-English-

I assume that you are being cheeky and read French, but I only threw on the notary part because it is easy to do, not because it is required by the French govt.