I will be in Nancy, Fr, have 4 days to be in Provence, 2 days for a meeting in Nuremberg, Ger and then back to Nancy. I am traveling by myself and am accustomed to making 500-600 mi trips in a day at home. Everything I've read recommends having a car in Provence and have seen decent rates with insurance through Sixt. Have looked at flights but though the initial come on says @$125 the actual costs are 5X that. Any thoughts? Thanks, Eve
Eve, more information in the question will get you better answers out the other end. You don't say where in Provence. It is a big place. Let's guess Avignon. It is between 9 and a half hours and ten - no potty stops, no traffic (hah!!) - by car plus tolls each way. And the same back. If you want to have 18 to 20 hours of your vacation looking forward out a windscreen - go for it. If you hit Stau, quite popular on that route through Germany, it could be much worse. By train it takes about the same time, change is Karlsruhe, but at least you can sleep or look out the windows. You don't give dates for this trip or would look for specifics for you. Have you used skyscanner to find the discount airlines? Have you varied the origination airport? Nice? Marseilles? Lyon? Have you varied the destination airport? Nuremberg? Munich? Even at a pinch, Prague? Those places are quite close to each other by train so you could fly into one and train to the other...
Thanks for steering me in the right direction. Have been checking out sky scanner and it really is helpful. I arrive at CDG the morning of 22/9/13 and plan to take a train to immediately to Commercy, Fr that day to meet up with friends and travel on their barge. We finish in Toul on 28/9/13 @noon and I plan to head to Avignon. Was thinking about picking up a car or taking a train/ flight. It looks like the best flight options go to Marseille so could get a car there for travel to Avignon, Arles, Aix en Provence, etc. I need to be in Nuremberg by 12:00 on 3/10/13 and could get there the night before. I'd like to leave Nuremberg on 4/10/13 and head to Paris for a brief stay before my flight out of CDG on 6/10/13. I could take the overnight train from Munich with a sleeper if that seems like a better option? What do you think?