I need some help - my best friend is going to Europe for the first time on his honeymoon. He plans to fly into Frankfurt on Lufthansa then to either Paris or Rome. He will rent a car in Paris, drive thru Burgundy and eventually to Rome, then head north thru Germany back to Paris via Champagne district. Or, he will start in Rome and do the drive in the reverse direction. He plans 24 days for the trip. So, is there a significant difference between renting the car in France versus Italy? Any comments on this route? Finally, as he has points to burn, he is going first class Lufthansa. I flew first class B Air last year and it was great, any experiences with Lufthansa?<BR><BR>I know a lot of this info is probably in the forum elsewhere, and I am going to dig, but he is booking soon and I would like to help.<BR>

In France there is the &quot;lease&quot; option, which may be cheaper than rental. Renault and Peugeot sell the car and repurchase it at the end of the agreed use period. The user prepays only the differential between purchase and resale plus full coverage insurance. It sounds complicated but is no more complicated than renting. It took us 5 minutes to return the car. You can check into it by looking at the Renault and Peugeot web pages. For traveling long distances, one should get a diesel, and the Peugeot diesel is said to be 20% more efficient than any other diesel.

Why does he want to do all that driving? It's his honeymoon. He should be resting, if you know what I mean.<BR><BR>Paris, Reims, and Germany (Munich/Bavaria) are plenty for a 24 day honeymoon. Save Italy for another trip.<BR><BR>We did Reims, Alsace, Baden-Baden, Munich, and Fussen in 10 days, and it wasen't hardly enough.<BR><BR>My advice is to pick a couple of key areas, take a couple of day trips, and enjoy the honeymoon. Besides, you don't want to be packing &amp; unpacking for 24 days.

Lyle:<BR><BR>I think it would make a LOT more sense to rent a car in Germany!!!<BR><BR>A. Renting in Germany is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive than in Italy. Don't know much about France.<BR><BR>Also, Italians do NOT accept the CDW waver that you can get by paying for the rental with your credit card (ALWAYS call your CC company to generally double check about that, though!!!).<BR><BR>AND, why pay extra for a flight from Germany to France or Italy, if the plan is to include Germany ANYWAYS in the driving itinerary?<BR><BR>Rent it in germany. Use one of US wholesellers, like AutoEurope, or Kemwell, get the best deals.

for 24 days and with pickup and drop off in Paris, I'd definitely go with Auto France and the Peugeot plan.I'd opt for a new 307 turbo diesel. We got nearly 50 miles (not KMs) to the gallon and the diesel in much cheaper than regular petrol. Total insurance is included in all their rentals, with no deductible.<BR>

Prvious postings by others have indicated that leasing in France is cheaper than renting in <BR>Germany, to the point that it makes sense to lease in a border town like Strasbourg. As to the cost of rental, count on about $25 per day for parking when coming to a big city.

Last summer on a 22 day trip through Germany, Austria, Italy and France we rented through autoeurope in Germany where we started. I compared that with leasing in France and it wasn't much different. Both those options were much less than renting in Italy, so he should definitly plan to have Italy in the middle of the trip. We flew into Munich and out of Paris and covered Bavaria, southern Austria, Italy (Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Umbria and Cinque Terra), Burgandy and Paris. I felt three weeks was enough time but I had already been to Paris a few times so only had a couple days there.

thanks all of you for your notes, yes I agree he is trying to do too much but they are both lawyers and who wants to argue with them?

Have you seen www.easycar.com? Mercedes A class for about $10 per day. I think they are affiliated with budget airline easyjet.