rental car places near vezelay and fontenay

Assuming you are trying to avoid the congestion & stress of getting around to the south side of Paris by not starting out with a car at CDG:
My suggestion.... take the Air France shuttle bus, route 3, from CDG to Orly (leaves every 30", takes an hour, & costs about 16€). Rent the car at Orly airport. The A6 highway that you'll want to take to get to Vezelay abuts the west side of the airport.

I think Tim's suggestion is good. Alternatively, you'd pick up your rental car in Avallon, which is about 15 Km from Vezelay. I don't think you'll find a car rental any closer.

Nancy, I think there isn't enough time to do all that in a day. The church at Vezelay isn't terribly time-consuming, but people usually park at the far end of the town and walk up to the church. Fontenay is an extensive complex and merits several hours. The train connections from CDG to that area, then renting a car, travel to those two sites, and then driving down to Beaune all in one day seems like more than a one-day trip. Several ideas that might help: stay near Vezelay and drive to Beaune the next morning, and consider renting the car at CDG and skip the train.

As the person who suggest renting the car at Montbard, I am surprised (and chagrined) to learn that this is not straightforward. I could have sworn that I saw a rental office at the train station when I was there 5 years ago; apparently I was mistaken. Very sorry! My next suggestion would be to get the car in Dijon and drive straight to the Abbey. That's not as sweet as renting right in Montbard, but it should not add too much time to your trip. Vezeley is not really an option, and Avallon is on a very slow and infrequent train out of Auxerre. You'd be better off renting in Auxerre, but even that probably does not work well for such a busy itinerary as you plan. Maybe just drive from deGaulle if that's really your only option. PS Sixt seems to have a rental office in Montbard at 40 BIS Av du Maréchal Leclerc.

Okay three more things. First is if you google "car rental Montbard" you get a lot of hits. It might be worth a call to one of the consolidators, such as Europe by Car, and talking to a human. Second, when Nancy said (elsewhere) that she and hers were coming from Paris, I did not think that meant deGaulle. Her ambitious itinerary is feasible I think if she catches a 7 AM train to Montbard or Dijon, not with a later train. Unless things have changed there are no direct trains from deGaulle. So Nancy, you might have to rethink things. Maybe Fontenay to Beaune, with Vezeley as a day trip the next day. There are some lovely towns you could visit briefly between the Abbey and Beaune.

I see two options: Get the car at the airport and drive down. It'll take less than three hours (maybe way less) and the southeast quadrant of the peripherique is not intimidating on the inner ring. This will also save the time lost to a mode of transportation change from train to car. Take the train to Auxerre and drive from there. Bigger place, more car options. In any case, use kayak.com to see if you don't get a better deal than the other places that are more often touted. I think you can get it all in and make Beaune in time for supper.

Thanks to you all. I will look into two options: picking up the car at cdg versus transferring to orly and picking it up there. Deciding that driving away from paris toward the A6 shouldn't be so tough as to cause us to create so many hurdles for ourselves. We get in at 6 am so all seems doable -- that is, vezelay and fontenay and beaune by evening.

Having initiated this thread with my question about renting cars near vezelay/fontenay but now having researched renting at cdg, as well as transferring to orly and renting there, i am NOW curious: In your view, worth the extra hour to transfer by Air France bus to Orly? Or worth renting at cdg and going from there direct to Vezelay? (I figure we arrive at Vezelay approx 6 hours from landing at CDG if we do the Orly transfer, and about 5 hours if we rent at CDG.)

According to viamichelin.com, driving time from CDG to Vezelay is 2 hours 46 min, from Orly 2 hours 25 min. Looks like there's not much reason to take a bus down to Orly. A GPS will help you find your way out of the city from either airport. Viamichelin.com is a good source of printable driving directions too.

I'd say they'd both be real close to the same. Getting out of Roissy is fast and slick. Worming your way out of Orly can take forever, depending on the mess just north of Rungis.