Rental Car in France

For Beaune and the area around there, you definitely want a car. My wife and I were there in 2010 and stayed in Beaune, and we had a car. (You could do a bigger city in Burgundy like Dijon by train, I'm sure). Provence and the Riviera are well connected by train. In Provence we enjoyed Les Baux and the Pont Du Gard, which are hard to reach without a car. I would rent a car and drop it before you head to the Riviera stops, depending on how the days fall. By that I mean that we usually rent through Auto Europe and a four day and seven day rental cost the same. For us whether it's economic affects the choice to rent a car, but it might not matter as much to you. We drove into Nice on a Friday afternoon on our 2003 trip and that was a really big mistake. It took us two hours after passing the city limit to reach the car rental place, and we barely got there before they closed. Nice is a big city that happens to be on the ocean. The beach front promenade with its pebbly beach is nice though. When we go back, we will train from Provence to the Riviera, and we will stay in Villefranche-Sur-Mer rather than Nice. Rick's France book is one of his best, and I highly recommend it.

>>whether a car is needed in Nice<< That depends on what you want to do in the area. Within the city of Nice, a car is a headache. Much of the surrounding region is easily accessible by train or bus. The buses are only €1 (yes, one euro, precisely to encourage people to ditch their cars), and the trains aren't much more expensive. Along the coast, buses run 3-4 times an hour (stopping about 8 PM) and trains run twice an hour (stopping about 11:30 PM). Some inland towns have pretty good bus connections (Eze, St. Paul de Vence, Grasse, Haut de Cagnes). But if you want to get away from the coast, drive the Middle or High Corniche, or see some inland areas with little or no bus service (La Turbie, on the High Corniche, has 4 buses a day Monday to Saturday and none on Sundays), a car is good. If you are going to use buses and trains, Rick's books have very specific details on how to get to each town near Nice.

I think you have the right idea. Depending on your schedule you could rent twice, once in Beaune and again in Avignon, and use the train to get from Burgundy to Provence. However that is not obviously better than driving in the sense that having a car in Burgundy and Provence provides obvious benefits. The suggestion to forgo the car for Nice has merit depending on your plans. You could return it in Avignon and take the train, for instance.

Thank you all very much for the great suggestions. Sounds like having a car for Beaune and Arles is the way to go. First time in France, so I am not saying this based on any experience, but I thought that driving from Beaune to Arles would be nice. Since we will only be in Nice for 2 full days, I am thinking that a car won't be necessary. I suspect that the day we travel from Arles to Nice we may want a car to do some touring before Nice. If we do that, any suggestions other then Avignon where to drop a car that will provide easy train service to Nice? Thanks again for your advice.

Keep the car until you get to Nice. Places like the Luberon (Gordes, Bonnieux, etc.) and Cassis are most easily reached by car. You might keep the car for a day in Nice if you wish to drive the Moyenne Corniche to Eze and Monaco. if not, if your rental agency has a convenient office in Nice, I suggest dropping the luggage at your hotel then returning the car. As to agencies, I've always found the best deals in France through Sixt.