Driving and Places to Visit in France in December?

Traveling to the places you mention, it will likely be like driving where I live, which means it could be rainy and cool. Not likely to have snow on the ground. Navigating is easy, once you understand how the signs work. Driving is very easy.

Thanks everyone for your input! It sounds like driving is not all that bad in France. Some of you said you used GPS. Did you buy one in the US that had European maps? Did you buy one in Europe? Or did you rent from the car rental company?

Eric

Eric: Re your last post, they're either bought here or rented from the rental company. You could buy them there but it will just take time away from your trip, and you'll get better prices here at Costco (once you convert the euro price into dollars, that is, the true cost to you).

I can't speak from experience with the weather, but to driving in France in general, I can attest. If you pick up some of the Michelin maps for France, you can navigate very easily throughout the country. Portable GPSs also work well (we used my wife's Blackberry to help navigate through Provence and Burgundy last spring). Have fun!

Hi Eris... Driving in France is very easy.. the roads are wonderful. On the toll roads you would need change, but if you are going toParis first, just save a bag of it and take on the tollroads. They are easy to navigate ...the tollbooths have a sign that tells you how many euros etc. The back road are wonderful, also. There will not be any traffic when you are going.We always rent a car from home and get it at Orly which is south of Paris. This ,of course, would not help you if you are going north. We used to use maps which are still helpful to orient yourself to the area you are going and where you are in relationship to all of France. We pretty much take our own GPS. We always put down a marker when we get the car so we can return it easily. There are alot of places you could drive or take a train to that are close to Paris... Burgundy, The Loire Valley, Brittany , Normandy. We love the excitement of Paris... then retreat to Burgundy. You could even take a train part of the time and drive part of the time.

A freak snow storm could strike, but temperatures in most of those places are usually well above freezing in December. Snow accumulation in the coastal regions of France is extremely rare.

However, thick layers of fog often cover NW Europe in the winter. This will likely be your biggest driving hazard, as visibility can be quite low, especially at night...

...speaking of which... The hours of daylight in December are extremely short, especially compared to California. This severely limits how much touring you can do in the countryside, although not in the cities, which are usually well illuminated.

Navigation by car in France (and most of western Europe) is generally very easy, outside of cities. Routes are well marked. One key difference between Europe and the US, however, is that you navigate by the names of towns and cities, not by the geographic direction. Sites of interest are usually marked- you can often find your destination even without a map.

We bought a TomTom GPS that came loaded with European maps. While we also took some Michelin maps for the areas where we were driving, the GPS was a wonderful tool -- easily guiding us through all the roundabouts encountered in France.

We agree that driving in France was so nice -- people actually seem to follow the speed limits and are polite and follow the rules of the road. Acquaint yourself with the standard speed limits (city, highway, toll roads) to make things easier for you.

Colmar (in the Alsace region of France near Strasbourg) has a nice Christmas market as well.

Just got back from driving around the south of France. One helpful feature on the "N" or National roads and "D" or Departmental roads is that they all have roundabouts at intersections. Just keep looking for your destination town, or towns along the way to your destination. If you don't catch the sign the first time around the roundabout - you'll catch it the 2nd time.

We had rented a car to pick up at the Gare du Nord. A mistake - arrange to get your car in a smaller town or at the airport! Neotiating the traffic in Paris was the hardest part of the three week trip!
Highly, highly recommend AutoEurope for car rental. On our last trip we had gotten a car to use in Normandy and another for Bordeaux. Well, the day of our train trip to bordeau there was a rail strike. I called the 800 number on my paperwork from my European cell phone and they had no problem in Maine or vermont or whereever they are to change my reservations! I drove to Bordeaux and it was about the same price as the train...
You'll have a great time with a car and GPS. No problems. Gas is expensive, but if you can afford to go now, you might not find it so painful.

Two years ago this month we went to Normandy after visiting Paris. I've not been in France in winter, so I cannot comment on the climate. However I think it would be damp and cold.

I second Katie's comments about avoiding driving the rental car in Paris. We also didn't want to get mired in the Paris traffic, so we picked up a rental car at an Avis office on near Versailles, making it much easier to avoid traffic on our drive westward.

We went to Gare Montparnasse and took the RER C to the "Viroflay - Rive Gauche" stop [15 minutes], walked down the hill and turned left [10 minutes] to the Avis office

97 Avenue Gén Leclerc, 78220 Viroflay, France? - 01 30 24 34 56

GPS 48.803871, 2.168445