Car Hire in France
With around 10,000 km of motorway network and around 30,000 km of main roads (routes nationales), touring France by car is an attractive holiday idea out of peak holiday periods. The east side of France, from a line drawn roughly from Paris through Clermont Ferrand to Béziers, has the greatest concentration of motorways, reflecting the traditional popularity of Paris, the French Alps, Provence and the Côte d'Azur as tourist areas. If you are travelling in the Midi-Pyrénees region a drive across the Millau viaduct in the Aveyron département , a marvel of civil engineering which opened in 2004, will cost you 6€ in the summer season.
The website: www.quelleroute.com gives the quickest road route between two points, with motorway distances and toll charges and other road distances. Driving times are given for each section of the journey based on keeping up to and within speed limits. Peak traffic periods are not taken into account and you should add on time for rest periods, recommended every two hours, if you are the sole driver. The route is shown in scroll-down form so you can print it out for use by your navigator.
If you plan to tour a region which is a considerable distance from your home, and you don't want to drive before you start touring, you can reserve a hire car through the SNCF when you pay for your train ticket. You pick up your car when you step off the train. With rail travel such good value, and motorway tolls usually adding about another 50 per cent to the amount you spend on fuel, it makes sense. Transporting your own car by train is expensive and is no guarantee against it breaking down later on.
