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Car rental Geneva to Annecy - what is best?

Car rental Geneva to Annecy - what is best?

Old Jan 19th, 2012, 12:24 PM
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Car rental Geneva to Annecy - what is best?

Our plan right now is to fly into Geneva, rent a car (we need an Automatic) at the airport and drive to Annecy where we are staying 3 nights, and exploring that area. Then we will return the car to Geneva and take the TGV to Paris. Is this the easiest/best/cheapest way to do it? I understand you can rent a car from either France or Switzerland at the Geneva airport, but if we rent from France there are Swiss roads we can't drive on. Please help...
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Old Jan 19th, 2012, 12:37 PM
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There are? According to whom?

You need a vignette to drive in Switzerland, but you'll need one no matter where you pick up the car.

If you're looking to save money, though, I'd compare French and Swiss rental prices, and be sure to check out the foreign offices of AutoEurope, which often show cheaper prices than the US site. I think it's been mentioned before that the UK site is often cheaper, but there are others as well.
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Old Jan 19th, 2012, 12:53 PM
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I believe you can rent a car on the "French" side of the airport, though you still may need to pay the fee to drive it into France. If you rented from an agency on the Franch side you could probably return in Annecy and train to Paris from there.
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Old Jan 19th, 2012, 01:01 PM
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Here's a post to a question I had asked:

"Geneva airport has Swiss side and French side (even though the airport iteslf is on Swiss soil). If you land on the Swiss side, after baggage reclaim, just follow the sign for France, and you emerge through a corridor to the French part of the terminal. There used to be a cursory passport check, but since Switzerland joined Schengen in 2007, there isn't any.

Car rental agencies have counters and fleet of cars both on the Swiss and French sides. You can get your car from either, but from the French counter you get a French registered car which eliminates cross-border drop-off fee, and rates are usually lower too. To get a French car at French rate, you must specify French side of the airport as the pick-up point.

To drive to Annecy, one thing to bear in mind is that if you use any part of the Swiss autoroute (which is usually the quickest way out of the airport), your car must have a current vignette (toll sticker). All Swiss-registered rental cars have one, but French ones probably don't, so make sure you avoid autoroute (with a sign vignette obligatoire) or you may be stopped and fined on the spot.

If you want to read the thread:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ide-needed.cfm
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Old Jan 20th, 2012, 11:40 AM
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I am wondering how difficult it is to get the required toll sticker for a car rented on the French side? As someone who has never driven in Europe before, I don't want things to be any more complicated than they need be, ie: I don't want to search for an alternate route to avoid the autoroute as I leave Geneva for Annecy. And it looks like it will be less expensive for us to rent a car from France, and easier to return it then in Annecy rather than driving back to Geneva.
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Old Jan 20th, 2012, 01:18 PM
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You can easily drive from Geneva airport (French side) to Annecy via Ferney-Voltaire without using the Swiss autoroute and without having to buy the vignette.
See: http://www.gva.ch/en/Portaldata/1/Re...cations/af.pdf
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Old Jan 20th, 2012, 01:25 PM
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You can also buy a vignette online beforehand if you're worried about it. But yes, the route via Ferney-Voltaire is probably easiest (and quite pretty).
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Old Jan 21st, 2012, 07:07 AM
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Thank you. This puts my mind at ease that the alternate route is not complicated, and is scenic as well.
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Old Jan 21st, 2012, 07:19 AM
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It would be very difficult to find a non-scenic drive in the area near Annecy.
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Old Jul 29th, 2013, 07:22 PM
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Ttt. Thanks for rental info.
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Old Aug 23rd, 2013, 05:42 PM
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I see this stream is over a year old, but I thought I would add my two cents based on my experience in Summer 2013 just in case someone else is still looking for information.

You can rent cars at the Geneva airport from the "French side" or the "Swiss side." I rented from the French side because I was returning the car to Paris. Renting from the Swiss side would have made this an international rental with a huge drop-off fee. If the return station is the same as the rental station, I am not sure which would be cheaper - a French rental or a Swiss rental. You'd have to investigate.

I also believe that ALL vehicles (regardless of nationality) using Swiss autoroutes need a vignette. Unlike Austria, e.g., where you can buy a short-duration vignette, the Swiss vignette is purchased on an annual basis and is quite expensive (around 30 Fr. I believe). If you are driving from Geneva to Annecy, I suggest you find a way that avoids the Swiss autoroutes so you can avoid buying the vignette. Driving on other roads in Switzerland is not a problem - it's only the autoroutes that require the vignette.

One negative I'll share with all of you ... on my most recent trip this summer I rented a compact automatic from Europcar on the French side of the airport. Automatics are pretty scarce in France, but the car was available exactly as I had reserved. That's the good news. The bad news is that when I turned on the car two warning lights went on: one as a reminder that the 15000 km service was imminent and one that there was a problem with the cooling system. You would think someone on the maintenance staff would have noticed that, wouldn't you? In fact, the coolant overflow tank was bone dry. They filled up the tank but it turns out there was a leak and the tank was empty two days later. It was very difficult to exchange the car for another automatic, because there are so few of them in France, and the Europcar "help" line was not particularly helpful. Luckily, I had rented the car through www.gemut.com who went to bat for me and got the car replaced with another automatic.

The first time I rented a car in France - twenty years ago - was also through Europcar, and the ventilation system on that car did not work. That was a manual transmission and replacing it was not a problem.

Perhaps I just had bad luck with Europcar France (they're 0 for 2 in my book), or perhaps their French operation needs a course in quality improvement. You be the judge. I never had such problems with cars rented from Europcar in other countries, nor with other agencies in France.
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Old Aug 24th, 2013, 10:38 AM
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@just_wandering, you are correct about all vehicles requiring a Swiss Vignette when driving on Swiss motorways. There are ways to access the airport from all directions and avoiding the vignette. Geneva airport publish a very useful map: http://www.gva.ch/Portaldata/1/Resou...cations/af.pdf
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 05:33 AM
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I'm still a bit confused.

I understand that if I fly to Geneva I can exit on the Swiss side or the French side, and that I can hire a car at either location. I understand that I need a vignette to drive on Swiss motorways but not regular roads - it costs approx €40.Car hire on the french side appears cheaper. I will be returning the car to geneva airport. If I hire a car on the French side can I drive from car hire on the French side via Lancy to the Swiss border (the yellow route on the GVA plan)or do I have to follow the pink route via Collonges? If so, is it much longer driving time. The viamichelin plan seems to send me on the yellow route (i.e. drive in Switzerland but avoid the motorway) but can I do that from the French car hire location?

Time is important as I will be trying to make Grenoble within 2 hours of departing Geneva airport.
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 07:31 AM
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www.viamichelin.com should be able to give the time it takes to Grenoble when avoiding autoroutes.
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 07:54 AM
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I don't want to avoid all autoroutes, just the one in Switzerland between airport & French border at A41 so that I don't need a vignette.

Can I collect a car from the French side of Geneva airport then drive from the Swiss side. It is very confusing. If I collect on the French side do I have to get to Grenoble via Collonges r can I exit the airport through a different route? Would the different route entail queuing at customs in a car to reenter Switzerland then queuing to leave again at st Julian ? I've never been so I don't know what is involved.
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 08:44 AM
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bgmcdermott on Aug 30, 13 at 11:54am
I don't want to avoid all autoroutes, just the one in Switzerland between airport & French border at A41 so that I don't need a vignette.


I drove back and forth between Geneva and Ferney-Voltaire a couple of times a week one summer. It is a city street and a quick easy drive except it can get busy at rush hour.

You want the A41 as you say. Unfortunately this comes out of Geneva on the other side of the city so you would probably need to pay the Swiss, in franken. You do not want to have to drive through the center of Geneva. The streets are parking lots. You can literally walk faster than drive. I know. I did that.

You could go a short distance south from the airport, catch the Route de Meyrin D984, go NW and you'll be out of the city and the country in a few minutes. Then take the D884 SE at Saint-Genis-Pouilly to work your way around to the A41. Not crystal clear from my map (Michelin number 244) but doable. You are on the edge of the Jura Mountain Range so the national routes look something like spaghetti.

For an illustrated introduction to driving in Europe see http://tinyurl.com/pdpdk26 and subsequent parts 2, 3, 4.

There is an alternative. Take a train from the Geneva airport. Unfortunately that takes a bit over 2.5 hours and service is maybe a half dozen a day. I think your drive, if you don't get lost, is going to be two hours, maybe more.

Another alternative is to ask your car rental agency if there is a car available which already has the vignette on the windshield. I would guess that a previous customer may have bought one. I don't think that you can take the vignette with you.
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 09:04 AM
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"so you would probably need to pay the Swiss, in franken".

No, you can pay in €
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 10:22 AM
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One could do two itineraries on www.viamichelin.com: one from Geneva airport to Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France specifying no toll roads, and the other one from Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France to Grenoble specifying the fastest route. Maps can then be printed out along with the directions.
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Old Aug 30th, 2013, 12:05 PM
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Or use Google maps, request the fastest route, then adjust -- drag -- the first part of the trip to be on non-toll roads.
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Old Sep 1st, 2013, 03:48 AM
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If I hire a car on the French side of the airport do I have to exit the airport via route de ferney (I.e. via France) or can I exit the airport via Switzerland (tunnel de vernier)?
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