Thanks to all who have responded to previous postings. I'm still trying to work this out. Please tell me the best way to accomplish the following.

Arrive at CDG at 11 am Friday morning.
Travel to Amboise. -

suggestions? TGV to Tours and rent a car? Or TGV into Amboise.
Or as someone previously posted:
"We subsequently found out that the TGV schedule didn't coordinate well with their flight (the TGV departs every 2-3 hours) and instead had them take the hourly train from Gare Austerlitz(son't know how easy it would be to access this from airport) to Blois (it's 1.5 hrs vs. 1 hr on the more expensive TGV). But because it's an hourly train, it allows for much more flexible scheduling. Plus, driving from Tours (St-Pierre-des-Corps) to Amboise would take you 20-25 minutes, and even longer to Blois, so you really don't save any time by taking the TGV,"

Spend 2 nights possibly at Manoir Les Minimes

Day 2 - Take a guided tour of area. ACCO-DISPO van tour suggested by posts sounds good.

Day 3 - Drive to Chartres and look around before heading back to Paris for the night.

The problem : Can we pick up a rental car in the Amboise area and drop it off in Chartres? We don't want to drive out of or into Paris. If we skip the rental car could we: 1-Get a cab to bring us from the train station in Amboise or walk? 2- Get a cab to bring us to Chartres? 3-Take the train to Chartres? What would we do with our luggage in Chartres?

If this doesn't work, I guess we would just have to skip Chartres and go back to Paris.
We don't speak French, so I don't think we would be able to read the road signs.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can give me advice!

Rent a car. Use www.viamichelin.com

The sign to Tours says "Tours", etc...

Best wishes,

Rex

If I understand your itinerary correctly, you arrive Friday noon at CDG, go to Amboise, take a guided tour the next day (Saturday), and then maybe stop by Chartres on your way back to Paris on Sunday. Are you sure that you need to rent a car at all? Is the convenience worth the cost? Admittedly I do not know where the Manoir les Minimes is.

If we don't have to rent a car we won't. We are trying to find out if the car is necessary for this itinerary. If it is not necessary, we would prefer not to rent the car. If we do rent the car, we need to know where can we pick it up and drop it off outside of Paris. No one in our party wants to drive around Paris. If this trip is too complicated to rely on public transportation, then we have no choice but to rent a vehicle.

A car is necessary for this itinerary. But you don;t have to drive in or out of Paris. Just pick up the car in the airport and head directly to Amboise - it's quite a short drive. On the way back stop at Chartres, etc and then drop the car at the ariport - this way you never have to fight Paris traffic - you'll have the car on easy highways til you get near Amboise.

You can't take a TGV to Amboise. Take a train to Tours and pick up a car there. You can take the TGV right from the airport if you like.

You do need a car for this trip. Road signs are not a problem if you study the international road signs before you leave - they are pretty obvious, and the only other French you'll need to know is the names of towns.

You can drop a car off in Chartres without a fee even if you pick it up elsewhere - at least AutoEurope lets you do this within a single country. But I think there is a minimum 3-day rental.