Car Travel France -- along eastern border
 

We will be spending five nights in Paris. We were hoping to rent a car outside of Paris and head south along the border. We need to end up in Rome at the end of our trip.
Where should we pick up the car? Where in the south France should we drop it off?
We would take the train thereafter. I don't want to avoid drop off fees.

I am also looking for great towns as we head south along the border. We were hoping to go into Switzerland too.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Jill

What border are you talking about? If you head straight south from Paris you end up in the Mediterranean.

How much time do you have for this? Do you know you can take a TGV from Paris and be in Provence in under 3 hours? The drive will take 2-3 times that, and unless you do it over several days and drive on the N and D roads instead of the autoroute, is boring and can be stressful.

Please avail yourself of a good map of western Europe.

Sorry, just re-read the thread title. It depends again on how much time you have and whether you're looking to stop in cities or towns and villages. Cities would be Strasbourg maybe Besançon, Lyon, Grenoble, Nice...and along that route you could pop over to Switzerland if you wanted to. I would drop the car off near the Italian border on the Med and take a train into Italy from there.

We would travel the eastern border.
Jill

I'm hoping to avoid the Nice area. I would prefer to drop
off the car prior and take the train to Italy.
Thanks for your help.
Jill

You could drive Paris to Lyon. From there a train route in one transfer is possible: Lyon-Torino-Rome. Your drive will route you, or close to Fontainebleau-Axerre-Beaune(Dijon)-Macon- Lyon.

Or after Macon or Lyon you could drive to Annecy with train route Annecy-Chambery-Milan-Rome.

You might want to take a look at my trip report that starts in Basel and includes travels in the Jura; click on my name to find it. The <i>route des Grandes Alpes</i> sticks close to the Italian border and is something to do if one likes Alpine scenery and driving over 5+ passes on narrow roads. Return the car in Nice or Menton and take the train to Italy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...7624827267374/

If you drive from Grenoble south ou might be interested in going the back roads over the mts. into the Drome Valley, historically the refuge of the Marquis during WWII. Nice little museum up there. Only French but still interesting none the less. Having said all that the Mt. road is narrow, twisty and challenging as mt. roads are but great scenery. Area hasn't change much since Hannibal hustled his elephants through there. However the road is better!!! Town of Die, which is the vintner area for great Clarette (champagne type), is on the way and further on is Saillon , a charming small town and had great sangria when we were there. Don't know what your dates are but if the time is right acres of lavender, sunflowers, and an interesting silk worm museum. This region supplied alot of the silk for Lyon weavers.