Paris to Normandy to Provence: Car vs. Train Options

Well, no way would I want to do so much driving in two days. But if you don't mind that, Ed's itinerary is not bad. I would price rail and consecutive auto rental however. Consider that the trip from Paris to Aix is 3 hours by train. The French driver pass (rail & car) used to be a pretty good deal, and let you break up your rental into short chunks without penalty. However, the options may have changed.

1. I'd get the car in Paris. A strong argument can be made for taking the train somewhere to the north. Since Caen/Bayeux are in the middle of MSN and Honfleur, Rouen might be more suitable for picking up the car and advoiding back-tracking. 2. Your're going to pay a heck of a lot more for two short-term car rental periods than one longe one, plus there's the cost of the train tickets. I don't know how long it would take to get from Normany to Provence by train, maybe six or seven hours, but you'll have to make a station change in Paris between two stations on opposite sides of town. I don't know how much the train will cost. The drive from Caen to Aix is on the order of twelve hours (road time), will stiff you around a hundred bucks for tolls, and half again that much for gas. I'd drive, but I'd take two days to do it since there are some potentially interesting stops along the way.

Ed:
Thanks very much for your reply. Based on your response, I have two related questions that i hope you will answer (then I'll leave you alone ?): 1. First you indicated that you would pick up the car in Paris, but then said a strong case could be made for picking it up in Rouen. I'm not sure which choice you are suggesting. Please clarify. 2. It sounds like driving from Normandy to Avignon is my best bet. Given the 12 hour drive, what place(s) would you suggest stopping at along the way (perhaps for one overnight stay)? Thank you!

Okay, Rob, but to shorten a long story, I probably have a hundred thousand european driving miles under my belt - - and for the last ten years alone have averaged three one-month trips per year, each putting about three thousand miles on a car. I'm highly prejudiced, tend to wander, and wouldn't travel any other way. It works for me, but don't dismiss what the other folks have for ideas. I'd get the car in Paris and head for Rouen (I'm pretty sure that door-to-door I can beat the train). Ruen is worth a couple of hours. Stopping at Les Andelys (ruins, but the only castle built in France by Lionheart makes it historically signficant and it has a great view of the river bends that gave the vikings fits) adds another hour. You can then pull into Honfleur having driven for only four hours, and with three hours for stops, makes it a pretty good day. I'll leave the rest of Normandy alone except to say that you don't need much time at MSM, the hotels are expensive the food more so (and it uniformly sucks - - all out of the same microwave kitchen, I suspect). A short beer costs eight bucks and it would cost two or three most other places. I'd press on to St Malo after MSM and spend the night in the best walled port in France with more good places to eat than you can shake a stick at.

Heading south, I'd swing through Chartres and stop for a couple of hours (the cathedral is the absolute best of the notre dame style and makes the one in Paris look like a country church). Then I'd press on to Beaune. Total driving time that day would be a little less than seven hours. Beaune is okay for a place to spend the night and worth a couple of hours wandering before and after supper - - others will say that you have to spend half your life there, ride bikes in the vinyards, etc - - sorry, not me, but it is worth a stop. From Beaune to Orange is about three and a half hours, another twenty minutes or so to Avignon. DO NOT ignore the opinions of anybody that disagrees with me. Everybody skins the toad a bit differently.

Ed: Thanks very much! Sounds good. Anybody else like to share their opinions re the two questions I initially posed?
Rob

What I need to fess up to after reading Adam's comment is that I start my day fairly early. We're generally on the road by six (before five on a solo trip). French freeway speed limits are eighty mph, you go a bit faster to stay with the flow, so it washes the toll booth slow-down. By noon, I've easily covered four hundred miles and have until bed-time to poke around at the new place. Most days are less than a couple hundred miles, anyway, so you don't even notice the traveling. This doesn't work for laggards.