Car rental in UK for travel in Europe

Mehul, I am sure someone who knows more than me will be along in a minute, but I'll just say I don't think you'll be able to get a left hand drive car at Gatwick (although I could be wrong).
The warning triangle is a safety requirement, for use in case of breakdown or accident, to alert oncoming traffic.

Thanks - Would you know any other parts of this package? For instance, what are magnetic stickers and headlamp deflectors and if are they mandatory in Europe?

You need to specify before renting if you are taking the car out of the country.

In Europe, foreign cars need to display their country of origin (,like your US 'tags' displaying the state of issue,) the GB Magnetic sticker is simply a sticker with "GB" in big letters indicating your car is British registered.

The Green Card is an international form of proof of insurance. Basically something the foreign police will recognise as proof of insurance.

The VE103 is a permission document to show you have the right to drive the vehicle out of the country. It's for hire cars when the registration documents are obviously kept by the owners.

Warning Triangle has been explained. The law requiring these varies by country, I'm pretty sure France requires it.

Car headlights are angled to point slightly towards the kerb to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. If you drive the car on the opposite side of the road than designed the lights will point into oncoming traffic. The deflectors are plastic transfers than block the angled parts of your headlights. They are required to drive a RHD car on the right and vice versa.

The baggage cover is not something standard and I'd guess is some kind of insurance.

Thanks - that explains the whole deal. Now I am wondering if I am better off renting the car from (and returning to) Calais - and take the ferry from Dover to Calais as the foot passengers.

Since I had booked the car a month ago from EuropCar, I may not get as favorable rates any more from Calais (and the whole thing might be a wash) - since I have only left about a week before the trip, but worth looking into.

An another alternative is to take a train from London to Brussels and rent from Brussels onwards. Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks!!

A few Eurostar trains stop in Calais. You could take either an early morning or late morning train from London to Calais and pick up a car there. The last Eurostar from Calais to London departs in the early afternoon.

If you weren't planning to visit any particular spots between Calais and Brussels, then take the Eurostar to Brussels and pick up a car there. For timetables and fares go to www.eurostar.com.

Thanks! This is very useful.
-Mehul

Follow-up:

We just returned from a fabulous trip, where I ended up retaining the EuropCar rental. With the full insurance (piece of mind) and the "Europe Package" (though we did not use any of the elements - GB sticker, head light deflectors, etc.) what had appeared to be a reasonable cost (160 GB pounds at the time of internet reservation) for 5 days bludgeoned to a hefty 400 big ones.

All said and done, I don't think (have not done any comparable analysis to back this up) I could have done better (moneywise) for me and two of my kids (16 and 12) with the rail travel, with as many spots that we visited - Gatwick-Dover/Calais-Brussels-Antwerp-Amsterdam-Brugge-Calais/Dover-Gatwick with the car resting in parking lot when in the cities. The added flexibility of bending our schedule at whim was a plus too.

We had some wonderful discoveries on the road - the memorable one being a great gourmet experience at a rest stop while crossing from Belgium to Netherlands (near Breda, if my memory serves right) at the restaurant named La Place - wonderful food and great ambience, unexpected for a fueling stop. The driving in Brussels was unusually aggressive.

Lessons Learnt:
1) GPS is the greatest things since the sliced bread ;-)
2) You can't see/do as many things as you plan on the paper.
3) Everything costs more - and takes longer - than you think.
4) There are never as many minutes available on the cell phone Sim cards as claimed/advertised.
5) It always helps to frame your expectations through advance readings and video watching (Rick Steves, Smart Travels/Rudy Maxa, Passport to Europe/Samantha Brown - all are wonderful resources easily available through the public libraries to borrow).

All said and done, it was a great trip and was the tip of the proverbial iceberg of numerous future Europe trips.

As a bonus, we discovered this forum which we will continue to tap into, for our future excursions abroad. Thanks everybody, for your help!

-Mehul

Mehul,

Glad to hear the car arrangements worked well on your trip. Any difficulties with driving a right-hand drive on the continent? I know U.K. residents do that all the time, but most of us on this side of the pond are not used to that.

I certainly agree with some of your "summary points". I also find that things seem to cost more, it always takes more time than planned, and having a GPS is definitely a good thing (although they are not infallible, so I always pack a good Map as well).

I imagine you're already starting to plan the next trip to Europe!

Cheers!

I was worried about the same thing, but it did not seem to matter after about 5 minutes (most likely due to prior exposure to RH driving while I was learning to drive in India). I was more anxious about threading through the narrow and winding lanes and avoiding the cars - and scooters and bikes - parked on both sides of the road.

It did give a sense of accomplishment - in spite of my normal driving shortcomings - having escaped without grazing any other person/object, dinging the car, getting a ticket, or getting honked by an irate driver. I guess good luck had more to do with it than good driving, but I am not complaining ;-)