I am trying to budget now for a trip in June/July 2009 to Dordogne, Provence, the Riviera, and Paris. The first 3 destinations will involve renting a car. I have heard that the current price of gas is approximately $8.85 per gallon in France! So, should I budget for an even higher price next year? How much higher? And at these prices, would it be better to rent a car twice and take the train from Dordogne to Provence in between each car rental instead of my initial plan of renting one car when I get off the train in Brive and driving it around Dordogne and then to Provence and the Riviera?
Our current basic plan looks like this: Fly to CDG, take train to Brive. Rent car and stay approx 9 days in Dordogne. Drive to Provence. Spend 10 days in Provence and on the Riviera. Return rental car and take the TGV to Paris for 5 days. Fly home. I am wondering if the increasingly high price of gas will make renting a car for such a long part of the trip prohibitive, and if there is a good way to still see these regions (Dordogne, Provence, the Riviera) without needing to drive around so much in a car. Thanks so much for your feedback.
Posts: 29 | Location: Washington, DC area suburbs | Registered: 09 March 2008
Fly to CDG, take train to Brive. Rent car and stay approx 9 days in Dordogne. Drive to Provence. Spend 10 days in Provence and on the Riviera. Return rental car and take the TGV to Paris for 5 days. Fly home.
Train connections are not good between Dordogne and Provence. I'd also recommend you stick to the one-car-rental plan … until the Riviera. You need a car in Dordogne and in Provence. You don't strictly need a car on the Riviera. And you would be absolutely masochist to keep a car in Paris. Bon voyage.
In 2006, we leased a car through AutoEurope for 52 days, based in Sarlat for 4 weeks, St. Remy for 3 weeks plus a few more days in transit. We picked up the car in Bordeaux and returned it in Avignon.
Altho, the first (nearly) fill-up (got the car with only a gallon of diesel) was a big shock at 50 euros , the refils were not so bad. The drive to anyplace was usually not too far within Dordogne and Provence. We mostly took roads without tolls and the speed limit were lower, hence better gas mileage. I did not keep a tally of how much we spent on gas.
We also found that the roads were well maintained.
Posts: 477 | Location: san francisco but so excited being in Venezia for the holidays!! | Registered: 22 April 2005
We just spent 10 days in the South of France. We had a rental car for 7 of those days. We got a 4-door diesel Fiat Bravo for $250 USD. It was diesel and we drove as much as we wanted and had to fill up only once.
We made three trips from Mougins down to the St. Tropez area and back up, going on the scenic roads and the A8. We made a trip up the Route de Napoleon, went to Gourdon, St. Paul de Vence, Haute Cagnes, Antibes, etc. We were very pleased. A8 tolls were 2-4Eur.
For the days that we stayed in Nice, we used public transportation to Villa Ephrussi, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (walked up to Beaulieu from there); and up to Menton through Monaco. 1Eur per person each way. If you are in Nice, you can get a 4Eur day pass on the bus for as far as Bealieu. To go further, it's 1 Eur each way. If you want to take the train, 1st class is 6Eur each way from Menton to Nice, but 2nd class is fine when it isn't crowded.
We used the bus to go from Mougins down to Cannes to avoid parking problems, then took a ferry to St. Marguerite island.
Picked up our car at the train station and dropped it off at the Nice Airport.
Please note the the price in dollars per litre is more a function of the Euro/dollar exchange than the price of gas in euros. So train travel will be correspondingly more expensive. The reason to take a train is not to save money, but to be able to relax instead of taking an A road, and to avoid driving into even anything bigger than a village. There are also pleasant ways to break the drive from the Dordogne to Provence, depending on where you are starting and ending (Pont du Gard, Nimes, St. Guillem le Desert, perhaps some of the cave paintings, etc.)
Enjoy. Gas prices will be the least of your financial worries!
Try sixti.com (not sixt.fr) for a car rental. I've rented Smarts (tiny little car, size of a refrigerator) 3 times in France since 2005 and kept them from 2 to 7 weeks. They are the cheapest by far I could find, I believe the 7 week rental was a little over 700 (I can't remember if it was E or $). The cars get great mileage and are fun to drive; I drove one from paris to tuscany in 2005. Funny story: On the website it had a picture of a smart with advertising all over it in bright orange and black and it said "rent this car for 5E" -- so I rented it, and when I went to pick it up at La Defense it was *literally that car* -- covered with advertising. There went my idea of looking like a local; I got a lot of stares everywhere.
, the refils were not so bad. The drive to anyplace was usually not too far within Dordogne and Provence. We mostly took roads without tolls and the speed limit were lower, hence better gas mileage. I did not keep a tally of how much we spent on gas.
