Eastern France trip

[Chuckanut]

I am thinking of taking a trip to the Eastern side of France. I was looking at tour offered that goes from Reims to Marseille, but I think I would rather do it myself.



Is the bus/train system good enough that I won't have to rent a car for the entire trip? Or is it best to rent one in Reims and return it in Marseille? I don't mind taking some extra time to ride a train if I can avoid the higher cost of renting a car. But, I don't want to waste huge amounts of time either waiting for trains, buses and connections.

 

[davebarnes]

Marseille is NOT "eastern" France. Unless I am very confused.

But, more importantly:
What cities/towns were you thinking of visiting?
What do you like to do? Museums? Hiking?
How important are restaurants?
How many days is your trip?

 

[Bamaman]

It's about 480 miles from Reims to Marseille, and it takes about 9 hours driving. The A7 highway takes you through many cities that should be pretty interesting including Djion and Lyon. And much of the route has a 2 lane highway running side by side the A7 with many small towns along the way.
If you're wanting to see the real France, a car gives you the ability to stop along the way and take in the experience. Driving in France is not difficult, but they do have a bunch of toll roads. Other than driving in Paris (again), I have no problem driving in France.

 

[Scrapr]

You can put your cities in Google and select trains to see how it might be. Are under a time frame to end or are you doing "slow"travel? I have heard some of the small towns in Provence need a car to best see the towns

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, the French train system is excellent and fast - France is a large country - and as long as you stick to the larger cities, you don’t need a car - in fact you won’t want one. The long distances between the major cities to me means that using their high speed >300km/hr TGV train system is more practical, and you definitely want a few days in the historic cities with their compact downtown historic areas, but you don’t want to have to deal with car parking, especially overnight. City public transportation is excellent.

We actually sustained 200mph between Strasbourg and Reims for quite a while.

If you spend sometime in the country, or want to go exploring small towns, then you probably need a car. But the best strategy is to rent from a nearby larger city for a few days.

We’ve visited numerous small towns by train or bus, and arranged mini-van day tours for topics of interest, letting the experts show us a lot in one day. That’s worked well.

And wine tours - those are way better with a designated driver, plus they will have arranged several winery visits ahead, you don’t have to deal with it. A day tour of the champagne wineries out of Eperney was a delight, starting with standing in a Moët Chandon vineyard learning all about Pinot noir right before visiting the Abbey church where Dom Perignon is buried. And that was just the beginning.......

Alsace - definitely want a car for a few days to visit the smaller towns.
Provence - the numerous larger towns are easily reached by train (or occasionally bus) but the famous smaller “hill towns” you are better off by car.
Cote d’Azure - quite a bit accessible by train, especially the towns along the coast. Some of the famous hilltop villages a bit harder to get to.

We used day mini-van tours including one private to accomplish the above, and they were all excellent, but upon returning I’d get a car to spend more time exploring on our own in Alsace and Provence.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

We adored driving through the French countryside. I bought a book called Backroads France or something like that. It was full of gorgeous looking drives around rural France. Despite the ticket we got - we'd do it again. In fact, we're GOING to. We did hear about others getting tickets, they have those photo ticket things. Drive slowly.

 

[Cortina]

We adored driving through the French countryside. I bought a book called Backroads France or something like that. It was full of gorgeous looking drives around rural France. Despite the ticket we got - we'd do it again. In fact, we're GOING to. We did hear about others getting tickets, they have those photo ticket things. Drive slowly.

Those "photo ticket things" are called speed cameras. They are mostly grey , "interestingly" placed , and almost impossible to see in advance (unlike ones in UK). Stick to the speed limits (recently reduced in a lot of places) and you won't get any surprises !

 

[FIREd]

Fixed speed cameras ("radars" as they are called in France) are usually announced a few hundred yards ahead with a sign like this one:

If you see a flash while driving in front of the camera, you just got caught. In any case, it is best to stick to the speed limit.

The train system can definitely get you from Reims to Marseilles. But you will zip from large city to large city and miss out on the fun stuff in between.

 

[Alan]

Last July we spent 2 weeks in that area, flew into Marseille, hired a car and had a super time.

Google maps works great. If you don't have a data plan then download the areas you need while in WiFi, even in the USA before you leave, and you can still navigate around with mobile data turned off. You just won't get the latest traffic updates.

If you use the toll roads then a US contactless credit or debit card works well. A US chip card, contactless or otherwise, works in all the stores and cafes.

Trains are good for all the major towns but the countryside is beautiful for driving in.

 

[DrRoy]

For our trip to France 5 years ago we used the subway and trains in and around Paris, rented a car in Caen, drove around the country to Chamonix, and took the train back to Paris. You would be fine if all you want is cities and town centers, but we hit a lot of specific locations where our own car was essential.

 

[Freedom56]

Drive... Don't take the trains unless you want to deal with last minute strikes. Plus you won't see much taking trains and who wants to deal with luggage at train stations all the time. We drive through villages in eastern France bordering Switzerland (from Geneva to Neuchatel) every year. Driving is easy and there is hardly any traffic. You have the flexibility of stopping where you want (restaurants, vistas, hiking trails) I would stay away from Marseille (South France). Nice, Cannes, and St Tropez are better places to visit in South France. Lyon has great food and so does Nice.

 

[COcheesehead]

The trains in France run great and are easy. As someone else mentioned “strikes” in France are common. I’ve been in country during gas, air traffic control, train, taxi and maybe a few other “strikes.” Sometimes they last a few hours, sometimes a few days. Think of it as part of the adventure, but there usually are alternatives. We were in Paris during a public transportation strike. We ended up just walking everywhere.

 

[Nemo2]

The trains in France run great and are easy.

We're big train fans everywhere......even if they're not 'great', they're great!

 

[Chuckanut]

If you use the toll roads then a US contactless credit or debit card works well. A US chip card, contactless or otherwise, works in all the stores and cafes.

+1 on the contactless card. Mine save my bacon several times in Eastern Europe when things like ticket machines were not working well. Often it's a physical fault such as the machine in Budapest that somehow had a metal object in the card slot. One tap, and success!

 

[FIREd]

FYI, contactless transactions have an upper limit of 30 euros in France.

 

[candrew]

If you decide to rent a car, we had a great experience last spring with Renault USA. https://renaultusa.com

Our lease with them was for 91 days. Factory new vehicle. First dollar collision and liability coverage. We picked up at Marseilles airport. Drop off was in Nice. Both were flawless and took only a few minutes. All things being equal, we'll use them again.

 

[NW-Bound]

If you decide to rent a car, we had a great experience last spring with Renault USA. https://renaultusa.com

Our lease with them was for 91 days. Factory new vehicle. First dollar collision and liability coverage. We picked up at Marseilles airport. Drop off was in Nice. Both were flawless and took only a few minutes. All things being equal, we'll use them again.

I have done that, but with Peugeot, and picked up at Orly Airport. Car had 2 km on the odometer. Pricey, but fully insured with no deductible.

I returned the car without a scratch, with just some exterior dirt, and more than 6,000 km on the odometer.

Car was even temporarily registered in my name and address, such that when I was clocked by radars in Germany and Switzerland, the tickets were sent to "NW-Bound, Arizona, France". That saved me the rip-off surcharge by the typical rental car companies.

And of course the tickets got to me, else I would not know. And I paid them too.

I was not intentionally speeding, and simply did not pay attention to speed limit changes. And it changed very rapidly from one section of highway to another.

 

[candrew]

I have done that, but with Peugeot, and picked up at Orly Airport. Car had 2 km on the odometer. Pricey, but fully insured with no deductible.

I returned the car without a scratch, with just some exterior dirt, and more than 6,000 km on the odometer.

Car was even temporarily registered in my name and address, such that when I was clocked by radars in Germany and Switzerland, the tickets were sent to "NW-Bound, Arizona, France". That saved me the rip-off surcharge by the typical rental car companies.

And of course the tickets got to me, else I would not know. And I paid them too.

I was not intentionally speeding, and simply did not pay attention to speed limit changes. And it changed very rapidly from one section of highway to another.

Heard good things from others about their experiences leasing through Peugeot. Our lease with Renault ended up costing us about $24/day, all in. Like you, we drove the heck out of our vehicle. Fingers crossed - it appears as though after 8+ months having lapsed since we turned in the car, no traffic citations. Several years ago we had a traffic citation issued by an Italian municipality that arrived at our U.S. address 6 months after it occurred. And yeah - we paid it promptly.

 

[NW-Bound]

Heard good things from others about their experiences leasing through Peugeot. Our lease with Renault ended up costing us about $24/day, all in. Like you, we drove the heck out of our vehicle. Fingers crossed - it appears as though after 8+ months having lapsed since we turned in the car, no traffic citations. Several years ago we had a traffic citation issued by an Italian municipality that arrived at our U.S. address 6 months after it occurred. And yeah - we paid it promptly.

$24/day with everything insured is a heck of a deal.

I just check my record, and in 2017 I paid US$1577 for 36 days for a Peugeot 308SW, which works out to $44/day. Just check with AutoEurope, and the same deal is now $1655 for $46/day.

Out of curiosity, I check the price for 72 days for the same car, and it is $2302 for $32/day.

Next time, I will get a smaller car for ease of parking.

 

[candrew]

Next time, I will get a smaller car for ease of parking.

We went with the smallest car that Renault offered for that very reason. Not only is driving in Italy notoriously adventurous, parking is often a challenge as well. Then there was the matter of gasoline at about $6US/gallon. Glad that we had a small car that got us about 45 miles/gallon.

 

[NW-Bound]

Some years ago, we rented the smallest car that was offered at CDG: a Citroen C1 with a 1L engine. It was compact and fun to drive.

It was so small it was not very popular, and during the trip I kept looking for other C1s on the road but did not see one. It could be that people bought it only for in-city driving, and we were on a road trip in the French countryside where people would want a larger car.