I am trying to plan a 10 day trip to France/Germany. We are trying to decide if we should fly into Paris out Frankfurt, or exactly how to plan. Any suggestions on how to get the most out of our 10 days. We plan on renting a auto, 2 adults.
Thank You for any advice.
To start your thinking:
By car, Frankfurt and Paris are an easy half day apart. Figure fifty bucks for gas and a bit more for French road tolls. Call it seventy-five dollars.
The second-country drop-off charge is bound to be a lot more -- at least $300?
The open-jaw mantra doesn't always work when you have a car.
Consider making a big loop. If you're going to spend time in Paris, you sure don't need a car there; pick it up as you leave.
It would make much more sense for you to figure out just where you are going before you decide on a car or which airports you will leave from.
10 days isn't much. If you are visiting Paris, you'd probably want to spend 4 nights or so there. If you're trying to travel around after that between Paris and Frankfurt, roughly, then it might make sense to use the car in France to see whatever and then avoid drop off fees by dropping it in Forbach, at the German border near Saarbrücken, where I'm certain that Avis and Europcar have agencies. From Forbach you can easily catch a train into Germany and do the very few days you'll have left by train. The Mosel and Rhine valleys are wonderful and would be logical destinations. Both are very easy to see by train. A Rheinland-Pfalz daypass is only 28 Euros and would allow all-day travel for the two of you throughout the region. It's a simple matter to catch a train to FRA from one of the Rhine villages such as Bacharach (about 1 hr. 20 minutes or so.)
Price open-jaw tickets vs. single destination to see where you come out, but in my case, flying in to Paris and out of Frankfurt was priced appropriately (i.e. no extra cost). Sometimes, when it is $500 or $600 more, it's not necessarily worth it, so research!
I am dropping my car (picking up AFTER Paris, to do French countryside) in Metz and spending the night before picking another up in Saarbruecken to avoid the dropping off in a different-country fees. I will take the train from Metz there, but I like the idea of just staying with the train once in Germany and doing the Rhine tours. I have a different situation (will be spending another 10 days in somewhat rural Germany, hanging with relatives), so I need a car.
