Driving in Spain and France

I've never been bothered by crazy drivers and I drive all over europe for about three months each year.

What some people consider crazy drivers are actually impatient drivers ticked at you because you're hanging around in the left lane. Stay to the right except to pass.

To the best of my memory, you'll have one toll in Spain and a slew in France. All stations have manned booths. You should have cash, fifty euros will be enough to get you as far Aix which is something less than five hours.

If you wear glasses, Spanish law requires that you have a second pair in the car.

To break the trip and see a neat place that hardly anybody knows about, I'd hop off the freeway just east of Montpellier and take the D66/D62 to Aigues-Mortes (google it). Total milage off the freeway is maybe twenty-five or thirty miles. The place is worth a couple of hours of wandering. It also has several spots with really good grub.

Thanks! Yeah, I hope my years of Bay Area driving experience will pay off there! I will look into that town, hopefully it will break up the drive!

Take Ed's advice about Aigues Mortes. Lunch at one of the restaurants in the town square on a summer's day is a delight. We arrived there one day just after the bulls had run through the town and the place was quivering with excitement.

You should have no trouble driving in Spain or in France. The highways are very good and the traffic is considerably less than you see at home.
Do a google search for guides regarding the signage, traffic laws, etc.
Reserve a diesel car and I would get an automatic which will include A/C, remote locks, alarm, etc. Be sure all of your stuff will fit in the trunk out of sight.
My personal preference is Europcar for the rental.
A GPS unit can be very helpful.

You may be looking at a big drop fee for crossing national boundaries. If you do not have the car reserved yet, you may save a bundle by taking the train to Perpignan or even Coloiure before picking up your car.

I have driven in both Spain and France and did not have a problem although there were a few nervous moments. I try to avoid driving in big cities overseas. We made the mistake of driving into Nice on Friday afternoon around 5pm. I would not recommend driving into Nice in general. It took us two hours to go from the city limits to dropping off the car, even though we knew right where it was. Problem was it was on the left side of the road and no way can you make a left turn on the beachfront boulevard. This is not the part of the country you will be in, but I found big city driving in Seville and Cordoba to be a challenge. A lot of it had to do with what I perceived as ambiguity. Dropping off the car is always hard because you have to find the place. You are probably less of a nervous driver than I am and will be fine.

Here's a quick in Spain: suppose you are at a red light waiting to make a right turn (no right turn on red allowed of course). Then you get a green light -- that does not mean you can go ahead and make your right turn. You have to move forward into the intersection and wait until the light on the cross street turns green. This is a crazy and inefficient system, I never understood this. Not sure if it's the same in Barcelona. If I had not been on foot first for a few days before I picked up the car I never would have known this.

Parking is Arles is tough, metered street parking. Free overnight, but tough to find a spot. When you get in the smaller streets you will wish you had a small car. We had a midsized car due to free upgrade but wish we did not in Arles after we almost got stuck on a narrow street. So a couple of nervous moments but all's well that ends well.

Victoria,

Especially for driving in Spain, each driver may require an International Driver's Permit, which must be used in conjunction with your home D.L. The IDP is valid for one year from date of issue.

I don't believe this is a requirement for France, however I recently saw a note in the web that stated "Please note, that in the European Union its the law (since Jan 01, 1999) that all Non-European customers NEED an International Drivers License (IDL) in addition to their local drivers license."

You can obtain these easily and inexpensively at any AAA office (two Passport photos required).

As the others have mentioned, there are numerous tolls in France on the Motorways/Freeways. Keep some cash on hand for those, as especially in France any automated machines (especially in France) will probably require "chip & PIN" credit cards.

Happy travels!

What Ken says about the toll highways ("Autoroutes" as they are called in France) is dead on, BUT with decent maps (I know zilch about GPS thingies) and sufficient time, you can stay on the Departmental (D) roads and really enjoy the French countryside, towns and villages. We take the Autoroutes only when pressed for time and occasionally, by accident. It happens!

The different ratings of roads in France is a little more complicated than Norma suggests. There are "N" roads which are usually good, free alternatives to autoroutes. When you get to the "D" level, it's a mixed bag. They can be quite good roads, or they can be barely more than paved paths. Even if the non-autoroute roads are good, they will go through towns where you will encounter lots of traffic and stop lights. That can make your trip time double. A good map (recommend Michelin) will help you decide whether to get off the autoroute. Another plus for the superhighways is that they have rest stops at frequent intervals, often with decent food, as well as the usual amenities; fuel, restrooms, etc. I think Autogrill is the name of the restaurant chain we liked best.

Well, we never encountered the "paved path" type of D highways, and did often travel on the N for National Highways, which often then become autoroutes, which I guess accounts for us being suddenly on an autoroute we had been trying to avoid. The highway rest stops are convenient but then so are the small restaurants, cafes and tearooms in the villages we went through. Sometimes we would be passing through a town on market day and the opportunity to stop and shop was one I could never pass up. Certainly our type of car travel is not for the "get there in a hurry" types, but I just love the journey as well as the destination.

We drove from Paris to Amboise (in the Loire Valley) and then dropped the car in Nice.

The freeways are slick. You get a ticket when you hop on the freeway and you do not pay until you hop off. There are lots of nice Gas Station type Oasis things along the way that you can fuel up and get food without getting off the freeway system. Once you are at your desired exit - you get off and hand your ticket to the teller who will tell you what you owe. It was on the spendier side...but I don't remember how much exactly...maybe 20Euro for a full day of driving...maybe??

Roundabouts are a man's best friend when you get used to them. You can hop on and then just keep spinning around until you decide which is your turn - and that can take some time when you are trying to read unfamiliar signs.

Print out mapquest directions for every single point-to-point. Or better yet, a GPS. In an pinch we used our new Iphone on our last trip to help us navigate - but those charges when we got home were pricey.

The drop off fee for your car is significant if you are dropping in a different country as someone eluded to earlier. Possibly up to $500.

Would not recommend picking up or dropping off a car within Paris city limits. Too hectic.

And the car drop offs are always so obscure. If I had one complaint it would be 'why do they seem to want to HIDE the rental car drop spots'.

Patience will be your best friend.

The RS guidebooks have a few pages of driving essentials. This was a big help my first time in France, and I'm sure would be true for Spain. I photocopied a few pages and laminated them (such as the road signs--different than US, no u-turns or free rights, the french words you'll see often in directions).

We started out driving in Normandy and Brittany, which are very easy and no pay tolls. When we went further south, we thought we'd avoid the tolls and use the secondary and tertiary roads. Roundabouts may be end up being best friends, but after about 75 of them, we decided the tolls were a small price. (That of course would depend on how far you're going.)

Thank you all so much for your help! I'm starting to feel more confident with the idea of driving abroad. I do have a few more questions if you know/or have dealt with any of these,

• What are your suggestions for rental car insurance? AAA told us our
  Amex will cover us if we use that to pay for the rental. Has anyone
  dealt with that?

• We've heard a few suggestions for diesel/automatic, but the fuel
  savings seem to off-set with the rental costs. My husband is
  comfortable with manual, but is diesel/automatic worth the hefty
  rental price?

I once had an accident (not my fault) with a rental car for which I had paid with Amex. Minor damage to the car, one flat tire. Amex took care of everything.

My AmExp does that, but you have to sign up for the program and they automatically stiff you thirty-five bucks or so each time you rent a car. My Visa and MC do the same thing for free. I do not get super CDW, other do.

For the car, go for the bottom line on the car rental, regardless of diesel or gas. I've had both and sometimes drive three of four thousand miles -- I've never found the difference in fuel cost to offset the car rental rate. In a gazillion rentals, I think I've only had an automatic once and that was just because that's what the had in the car size/price I'd ordered so I paid no extra. I'd never pay extra for it.

I'm about as cheap as they come and only rent the smallest car available, there might be a difference with larger vehicles.

Just to be sure, I would call AMEX and ask about the coverage. There are all kinds of different AMEX cards. We once had a rock fly up from the road and crack the windshield of our rental. AMEX did handle it, and we didn't have to pay a cent. I also just found out from reading this helpline that you can buy rental car coverage from them for $17.95 that covers you for up to 30 days or more, depending on your state of residence. Look at their website for details.