This is my first trip to Europe and I am planning on renting a car in Nice and taking 3 days to drive to Paris where I have an apt. rented. I will be taking my time driving through the country side and have read the back roads of Provence are fairly easy to navigate. I am trying to avoid driving in Paris at all cost and trying to figure out the best way to drop off the car at the rental location, and get to my apt in Paris. I was looking at dropping off at the Orly airport as this seems to be in the southern part, or possibly dropping off in Versailles and taking the train into Paris from there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Orly will be much easier and quicker than Versailles.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10632 posts
I second Ed: Orly.
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
Why not pick someplace near Paris that is of interest and take the train in? Or even to someplace like Burgundy, which has a great rail connection to Paris? You don't have to go all the way to Orly.
Posted by
Lebanon
711 posts
That is a good idea. You could drop off your car in Beaune, stay the night, have some wine,and take the train into Paris. There used to be a train early morning...no transfers into Paris.If you are taking a few days and you got into Beaune early you could drive the back roads of Burgundy around Beaune. the Burgundy canal is close by and the wonderful village of Chateauneuf en auxois overlooking the canal.This is really close to Beaune and the backroads are very easy to drive especially after the A6 or whatever you would be taking up from the south.
Posted by
OP
San Diego, California, United States
2 posts
Thank you for everyone's response. I thought of dropping the car off in Burgundy or somewhere near there and training in but the cost of buying two train tickets were expensive and defeated the purpose of having the car. I do plan on driving through this region though and will most likely drop the car off at Orly airport. It seems like I can at least avoid driving through some of the crazier city streets of Paris.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
We did the drive from Provence north to Paris last year. We dropped the car off at Dijon and took the very fast train into Paris. Some of the car rental places are right there in the train station. Our Europcar place was. You could turn in the car and stay the night in Beaune. Driving around there is scenic and wonderful.
Posted by
Dallas, United States
707 posts
Here's another approach. We looked for a car rental agency (happened to be Europcar) on the south side of the city with easy access from the autoroute and near a metro station. We found it near Porte d'Orleans and getting to it was easy. Got rid of the car and headed to the metro to get to our hotel. Caution: you may be adding the expense of a train ticket and not lowering the car rental cost. However you do it, good luck!