Frankfurt to Paris

Tk You're talking about stopping short of Paris and then coming back for the car and take it back to Frankfurt, right?. If so, Reims. If you decide to drive all the way in, yell. But figure parking right at the peripherique is going to stiff you fifty bucks a day. I've no idea why anybody would drive from Frankfurt to Kaiserlautern to catch a train to Paris. Also, I think Ralph may have meant the A4.

Why drive at all. There are plenty of 49, 59 euro savings fares on ICE & TGV trains out of Frankfurt. Driving to say, Saarbrucken drops that to 29 to 39 euro. It will take the same or more time to drive there, and I would conservatively estimate you'll burn 15 liters of fuel at 2 euro/liter, so driving part way saves neither time nor money. And that's just one way doesn't include parking fees. Take the train, relax, have a nice breakfast, read the paper, and you're there.

Well...here is my non-plan... I have about 10 days to explore a few places to the west and southwest of Frankfurt and want to include Paris. Flying in and out of Frankfurt and I need a car for part of the trip (all except Paris)... exploring parts of France and maybe a Christmas Market or two on the way back to the airport to drop car. So... my dilema is how to fit Paris in there and deal with my car.
@Ed... don''t want to deal with parking in Paris... I would rather figure out another plan.

Well, since its a non-plan, when the mood hits you, just park at a station with direct service to Paris and hop on the next train.

Tk, When we've driven up from the family house in Burgundy and don't want to deal with the car/traffic into Paris, we've left the car at the parking structure behind the Fontainebleau train station for a few days. Dina from Fontainebleau helped us with all the details the first time. Hopefully she'll happen by and be able to give you the name of the parking structure. The first time we couldn't find it and I had to call the garage and have them give exact directions. In fact, it was a no-brainer, just on a different street behind the station.

@Bets...sounds like what I am looking for. Thanks. Even though I will be traveling with a non-plan I want a few ideas of where I can leave car easily and hop on the train. Any other suggestions for interesting towns in that area of France?
I have never really spent any time exploring this area.

Strasbourg has a non-stop to Paris a handful of times a day, in about 3 hours travel time. There's various car-parks you could leave your car. The Rivetoile is a big shopping mall. A 30 min walk to the Strasbourg main train station, or there's ones closer to the station itself. Strasbourg has a large, spread out, Christmas market.

Added detail about the garage next to the Strasbourg station we used: they close over the weekend. My son lived in a apartment very close to the station, so when I rented a car in Frankfurt to visit him, I used the garage but we had to pay close attention to the closing days and hours.