Driving in Paris

Wow, good luck getting out of Paris. We drive all over France, but we took the train to Dijon to rent the vehicle. Stayed in a b&b outside of Dijon, since we had a vehicle, and just took off from there. We went south from there and it was so damn beautiful. Be ready for roundabouts.

Returned the vehicle in Dijon and rode the train back to Paris.

Can you take a train to your first destination outside the city and rent/return the rental car there? I rented at the airport last fall & drove all around Normandy....getting out of town was fine, but a week later, returning the car was a long slog across Paris. Interesting enough to see the odd bits of urban outskirts, but heavy traffic, tolls, and required several detours because of construction.

Driving in rural (non-Paris) France was easy peasy. Spring for the GPS/nav and you'll have no problems. Several times, the nav system re-routed us due to traffic or detours. It saved us lots of navigational headaches. Plus, we made it to a number of out-of-the-way sights inaccessible via train.

quote:

---

Have you been to Paris? The drivers there make Baton Rouge drivers look like polite little old ladies who have had professional driver training.

NO WAY I would even attempt to drive a rental inside the city. Listen to the people saying to rent a car out of town and drive/return to there.

---

Paris is pretty tame, compared to Naples.

Important question no one asked, where exactly are you planning on driving to outside of Paris? Technically, the whole universe is outside of Paris.

quote:

---

I’m driving out of the city to see family in Dinard (western coast) then up to Normandy, Bayeaux and Et tratat

---

Obviously, if you're going to Dinard, St. Malo is a must, but I'd make the effort to go to Cancale and eat oysters. On your way to Bayeux, you can stop in Villedieu-les-Poeles, where the Mauviel (copper cookware) factory is located. The village has a tradition of copper crafting, so if you're looking for useful souvenirs, it's an interesting place.

Bayeux has a fantastic Saturday market on a parking lot in the middle of town.....Etretat is beautiful!

My wife and I drove over 1,800 miles last summer staring and ending at the Paris Airport. We used Waze and it was incredibly easy. Driving was like in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston or Dallas. You don't need an international driver's license. We used mostly toll roads when driving out of the city and it was also very easy. Cost is about $20 per 200 miles and they have toll booths. Waze gives you the speed limit and your driving speed. Watch out for "enforcement zones" which are un-maned photo speed zones. You can't exceed the speed limit by even 1 KPH in those zones and but can drive like a bat out of hell when not in a speed zone. We never saw a cop our whole trip. Waze tells you about the enforcement zones and they are also in the smaller cities. There are a lot of roundabouts (traffic circles). We had a blast over 20 days and saw a lot of the country. I normally take trains in Europe, but we were glad we took a car in France. They also drive on the correct side of the road, unlike the UK.