Train to Paris and car rental drop off in Loire Valley

2 or 3 years ago we rented through Avis, who had an office at the St Pierre des Corps station, the TGV spur for Tours. Small station, little to no traffic, very easy to negotiate. Several days later we dropped our car and got aboard the TGV to CDG for our flight the next morning. It was so easy I am still amazed.

I did something similar a few years ago, but dropped of my car in Rennes. It was extremely simple compared to my nightmare dropping a car in Paris a few years before that. Most smaller cities have more than one car rental station, but usually one of them is at the train station which makes it quite simple.

There's a Hertz place just across the street on the east side of the PdC station.

Our drop-off was not actually in Tours but in St. Pierre des Corps. We used Europcar, and the rental office was directly across the street from the train station. Easy as could be!

Debbie Previous posters have made good suggestions. One key issue is that the Rental Car agencies in small towns/train stations (as opposed to airports) in Europe have very limitied hours. Weekdays may be only until 5 pm and may have a 1 or 2 hour break midday. The weekends are even more of a problem since many agencies are only open 1/2 day on Saturday. The opening hours are clearly stated on the agency pick up and drop off times before you book your car. As long as you plan your itinerary accordingly, you will have no problems. Happy Travels. Bobbie

In our case, the hours were indeed limited and the office closed at the time we wanted to drop the car. However, we had arranged to park in the nearby garage and drop the keys through the office door slot. Worked like a charm. On a related note, we returned a car in Germany this spring -to a closed office- and had it not been for the fellow our hotel kindly sent along with us to fetch us back, we would never,ever have figured out how to use the dropbox machine. I bet reading German might have helped?