Taiwan

Dear fellow travellers,
We are planning to travel around Loire Valley and Provence. Any one has info where to rent a 9 passenger van, i.e. websites etc. Do I need a special license for driving a 9 seaters in France? Thank you very much for your reply. God bless you.

janisj

I haven't rented one - maybe others can help w/ that. My guess is you'd need a driver.

But, how many of you are there? If there are 9 people, a 9-seater won't work since there would be no space for their luggage.

It would undoubtedly be cheaper and easier to rent two cars.

StCirq

www.autoeurope.com

I agree two cars is probably easier. And more practical. Maneuvering a 9-passenger van through the streets of French villages can be quite a challenge.

And you'd best be very comfortable driving a stick shift.

travelgirl2

Not sure about France, but we rented a 9 passenger van in Italy last summer. There were 8 of us. There was lots of room in the back for all the luggage.

The only problem if we had 9 people was that the 9th seat was between the driver and the front seat passenger. Not too much room there, although someone did sit there one day.

We rented through Auto Europa. Their original price was $1449 for a manual transmission for a week in Tuscany. When I found a better price on www.mietwagenmarkt.de, Auto Europa agreed to match it - $1187 for an automatic.

We did not need any special license. Our US driver's license was fine.

The van was pretty big, so it was awkward to drive around the small streets, but it was not too much of a problem. It had GPS, which was helpful.

Good luck!

Taiwan

Just want to thank you for taking to answer my question. we have 8 people and usually travel very light. Is it really a challenge to drive in French village? Special License needed?

StCirq

NO, you don't need a special license.

Yes, it's a challenge with a vehicle that big. Parking might be quite problematic, and on small streets you'll probably need to bend the mirrors in. There's a reason why French cars are on average a lot smaller than American ones.

nytraveler

Streets in midievel towns are much smaller than in modernn cities. You may find you need 2 parking spaces to fit, you may have to park partly on the sidewalk - and there have beena couple places where we had to drive partly on the sidewal to pass a car coming from the other direction _ and this was with a full-size sedan - not any sort of van.

Practice up on you parallel parking - in space about a foot longer than the car.