3gentravel

Ok, we initially planned on renting a car in Switzerland, but we will be arriving (if we rail from Paris) on a Saturday after the car offices are closed (no matter where we tried to rent the car from, city or airport).

No matter how we worked our travel plans, we are going to be doing a one way rental (I know, huge fees). So the question is-do we rent in Paris (CDG) and drive to Spiez or do we rent in Switzerland? It looks like it would take away from our 1st full day of travel time-IF we can find an open agency on Sun!

Due to family visits and the things we are doing in Switzerland, we must have a car (which we will be taking it for a week for other traveling).

Thanks in advance for all you assistance.

nytraveler

Where will you be dropping. You can usually rent at one office and drop at another in the same country with you addiitional fee.

nytraveler

That should be no additional fee - if you stay in Switzerland.

3gentravel

We will have the high one way fees, dropping in Italy. I'm just not sure the best way to handle the situation from Paris to Switzerland due to the early closing times of rental offices in Switzerland.

StuDudley

Be more specific. Will you spend any time seeing France??? Where are you starting in Switzerland??? How many days will you spend in that "starting" location??? Can you wait till Monday to pick up a car??? How many days will you spend in Switzerland before driving into Italy??? How many days will you spend in Italy??? What is your complete itinerary??? Renting a car in Switzerland is less expensive than renting one in Italy or France - so the drop-off cost may be off-set by the lower Swiss/France rental cost. In '08, we landed in Geneva and rented a Swiss car, but spent 5 weeks in France. Swiss cars were less expensive to rent.

Stu Dudley

ParisAmsterdam

Not sure where you are looking if you find no rental outlets open on a Saturday... using the
http://www.autoeurope.com site I find this for car rentals at the Basel airport:


OPEN Saturdays 08:20 AM-10:00 PM
OPEN Mondays-Fridays 07:00 AM-11:00 PM
OPEN Sundays 03:00 PM-11:00 PM

So no problem there. On your other thread re car rental someone said "You don't need a permit for Italy." Well, they were wrong. You *do* need an International Driving Permit there to be legal.
They cost about 20 bucks from the AA.

3gentravel

All: We only chose arrival in France because it really saved a lot on the tickets. We arrive at 835 a.m. CDG, so I figured we'd venture to the Eiffel tower-just because. To be honest, we don't want to spend a lot of time there. I looked at leaving via train at approx 1420 hours,(found timeline on train websites with departing trains to Bern Switzerland). I estimated 1 hour or so to get out of airport, just over hour drive to Eiffel Tower. However, I had enquired with a few car rental agencies and they couldn't accomodate a car pick up in switzerland after our arrival time of 1800. Our ultimate destination in Switzerland is Aeschi b. Speiz and surrounding area. We will have 4 days there, thus, we would like the car as soon as we arrive. From there, we would have the car 4 more days to venture to Nueschwanstein & down to Venice. I figured 4 days was enough time to "slowly" do our travels. It's an open area on our itinerary, not rushed. Per viamichelan, it's 4.5 hours to Fussen then from Aeschi b. Spiez, 10+ hours of driving from Fussen to Trento to Treviso to Venice. I think we will stop somewhere along the way for the night. Like I said, this is not a "carved in stone" part of the trip. Just going along what we fall upon. Once we reach Venice, we no longer plan on having a car for the remainder of the trip-all train/bus from that point forward.

kerouac

You can often save an enormous amount of money by avoiding an international drop off fee. In many cases, this can be as easy as leaving a car at a border station, walking across the border, and getting a new car in the country where you will be leaving the car at the end.

During the volcanic ash business last year, while doing a local rental at Europcar at Gare du Nord, there were dozens of people taking cars to Spain or Italy and accepting to pay a drop off fee from 400 to 600€ (depending on the category of the car). If they had had the least bit of sense, they would have arranged to leave the cars at the border of France and then just taken a train or a differnt car to Barcelona, Madrid, Milan or Rome.

3gentravel

Kerouac: Exactly how far woud we have to go to get a car "at the border"? For istance: We drive from Aeschi b. Spiez to Fussen (We drop at border of Switzerland/Germany, get new car in Germany???) And yes, we are well aware of the one way fees! HUGE! But I'm also trying to keep this enjoyable for my mom & daughter. They are getting a "taste" of Europe, they have no idea what they are missing-but it's Mom's itinerary and "last chance trip of a lifetime" for her. I don't want to make it difficult. I had even considered hiring a driver from CDG, drive us to Eiffel Tower, then Train station for our travel to Switzerland-which is why we were supposed to pick the car up in Switzerland.