driving itinery in France

Do you mean towns along the way or just around Avignon and Nice? Is your travel time from Paris to Avignon one of the 3 days? Are you going back to Paris from Nice? I've been planning a partial driving trip to France so I Googled basic directions to your locations and was surprised to see that Google says it takes almost 7 hours to get to Avignon from Paris, about 3 hours to get to Nice from Avignon and over 9 hours to drive from Nice back to Paris. Those are mostly autoroute roads and don't include any stops for anything. We are staying in Aix-en-Provence and decided to end our drive there and take the TGV train back when I realized how long the drive would be. It wil cost us 3.5 hours instead of almost 8 hours of driving and I was able to get some really cheap tickets (about $67 for both of us) using some advice from others on the Helpline. How much time you have to drive around Provence and the Cote d'Azur may be affected by your answers to my questions above.

Google maps are nice for figuring out a route, they stink in both directions for reall driving times. Actual experience over a bunch of years might help: All three cities are connected by four-lane freeways the whole way. The speed limit is 130/80. You'll be fudging the high end just a bit just staying up with traffic. Paris to Avignon is five and a half hours of road time. Avignon to Nice is normally two and a half, but who knows what it will be like in summer once you get about twenty miles west of Cannes. Nice back to Paris is the same track as coming down. If you need a break on the Paris-Avignon leg, Beanue is a couple of minutes off the freeway, right at the midpoint, and worth an hour plus whatever time it might take you to eat. Since you'll be sweating blood if you don't stop for gas on that leg, anyway, there's a manned station about a half mile south of the freeway that usually beats the rest plaza prices. Enroute to Avignon you'll slow down twice to get a toll ticket and twice more to pay. Heading over to Nice I think you you have two pair of stops as above, plus two more where you just pay a toll for, a total of six. Tolls for the trip will run right at a hundred euro, in case you want to factor that in to a decision. You're about to get swamped with ideas of what to see from both Avignon and Nice.

Driving from Paris to Avignon is a fine idea, if you have the time to spend stopping along the way. If you want to maximize your time in Provence and the Cote d'Azure, however, you might consider taking the train to Avignon and renting that car there. Those trains are much faster than driving and will get to to Avignon in less than 3 hours. Of course you'd miss a lot of great stuff in between. But I can't tell from your post which kind of trip you are having. If the idea is just to barrel thought to Avignon, for goodness sakes take the train.

I would have guessed that trains from Paris Montparnasse were closer to four hours and the three hour duration is more likely from CDG. Unless you're staying next door to Gare Montparnasse, you need to factor in metro time to get there (30 min ?) and another ten or so to hike from the metro to the SNCF side. Plus whatever time it takes you to stumble around to find the platform and allow a little time to wait for the train. If I'm correct (big IF), it's starting to get to be a wash on time. What might favor the train is where you'll get the car in Paris - - in Avignon it's handy to the TGV station. What really favors Adam's position is that, unless you have things on the list to see enroute, the drive is hypnotizing in it's monotony. I don't know how many times I've driven it, but I'm usually slapping my face except for the little one-hour stretch between Lyon and Valence

Ed, I can't figure out why you seem to be advocating for driving when you admit it's painfully monotonous, involves two tolls, more than a tank of over $9/gallon gas, and the extra rental car time ALL while making a bunch of incorrect assumptions about the TGV - even though the correct information can be found in 60 seconds of internet research. It is 2 hours, 38 minutes from GARE DE LYON, Paris to the TGV Avignon. No way is driving versus taking the train a "wash" in time. Not even close. It doesn't make sense to factor in Metro time to Gare De Lyon, Metro to SNCF platform time, the supposed mix ups at SNCF (the gates are pretty clearly labeled after all) if you're not going to factor in Metro or taxi time to the car rental pickup in Paris and potential city driving time and traffic just getting out of Paris.
And why does CDG even factor in to your hypothetical travel times when it's northeast of the city and they're traveling south? Ruth: Door to door, you will save at least a couple hours (and again, MONEY) taking the TGV. HOWEVER if you want to visit places between Paris and Avignon, by all means, drive. That would be the best way to see things between Paris and Avignon. But I'm ready to challenge Ed to a "Top Gear" style challenge of train vs. car. I'd win by a couple hours. No way does driving make sense unless you want to stop and see things along the way.