AZKathy

My husband and I are picking up a rental car at CDG and returning it to Paris after our Brittany trip, but I think I have some choice of Hertz return locations. We are staying in the Latin Quarter near the RER station (Hotel des Carmes) after we turn the car in, so I can either drive directly to CDG (and take the RER in) or return it to a "better" location, if you recommend one. We will have 2 suitcases and backpacks etc. I suppose we could drive all the way to Hotel des Carmes, drop our stuff, and then return the car, if that is recommended. (I was not sure we wanted that much driving in Paris.)

Thank you!
Kathy

dendleju

If you are not accustomed to Paris driving, I would return to CDG and take either a cab or shuttle into the city. It will be worth the cost in saved time and aggravation. Returning to CDG is easy. You do need to know, when coming in from Brittany, to head for direction Lille, you do not pick up signs for a while and it can be confusing knowing which way to go. Check with the hotel, they may have a cheaper shuttle option.
Other option is for driver to drop passenger and bags at Hotel then return car to an in town location (website will show you those) and then hoof it/metro back to the hotel. That is what we do, but my husband is very familair with Paris and very comfortable driving there and we have 2 small kids to juggle, so for us this is a bit easier..

jpie

I would decide based on what day/time you expect to getting into Paris-balanced off by how much luggage you have to manage on the metro I would not do the drop off return-we did that once and it ate up the whole afternoon!

We use Hertz a lot and in your neighborhood I would probably return either to the one of the larger closest offices-under the Louvre is my favorite because you get to drive right into the parking underneath-so kind of fun. Otherwise, both Gare d'est and gare du nord have offices. I would suggest if you do return in town to stick with one of the larger offices at the train stations or the big one at the Louvre-we have found check in much faster than at the small neighborhood Shell station type agencies. I keep the list in a word document so put the ones fairly near your hotel below:

Gare de L'Est - Railway Station
Adresse: 2 Rue du 8 Mai 1945 Paris,
France
Téléphone: 01 42 05 50 43
Hours of Operation : Mo-Fr 0700-2000, Sa 0800-1300, Su closed

Gare du Nord - Railway Station
Adresse: 12 Rue de Dunkerque
Paris,France
Téléphone: 01 55319321
Hours of Operation : Mo-Fr 0630-2330, Sa-Su 0700-2330

Carrousel - Louvre
Adresse: 99 Rue de Rivoli Musée du Louvre,
Paris,France

Téléphone: 01 47034912
Hours of Operation : Mo-Th 0800-1800, Fr 0800-1900, Sa 0800-1300 1400-1600, Su 0800-1300

Montparnasse - Ave du Maine
Adresse: 45 Ave du Maine Paris,
France
Téléphone: 08 20009050
Hours of Operation : Mo-Fr 0700-2200, Sa 0700-2000, Su 0800-2200

CarolA

My rule is ...

I always return to the airport in major cities.. I admit I am a chicken. I have no desire to drive in Paris, London, Rome, etc....

normal1983

We dropped off our rental at Orly. It was a bit stressful and we went around in circles a couple of times at the airport but finally mangaged to find the drop off location. We then took a taxi to our apartment in Paris. Driving around Normandy was easy, driving in Paris was not fun! But that's only because its an unfamiliar city. We didn't have fun driving in NYC either!

ParisAmsterdam

You'll have been driving in France already so won't be totally new to it all. So let me ask you this...

...i f you were going to stay in Manhattan, downtown LA or Chicago would you leave your car at the airport and shlep into town some other way? I doubt it!

You'd drive in and drop the car as close to the hotel as practical. ;^)

Coming from Brittany CDG is pretty well on the opposite side of Paris anyway! Plan out your route using Google maps and/or viamichelin.com You'll have good paper maps as well I assume plus probably GPS... avoid rush hour and you'll be fine.

AZKathy

Okay, thanks so much. We did buy a GPS for the trip and my husband does not mind driving in cities (even Mexico City does not scare him!). So maybe we will try it. Showing my ignorance, is rush hour in Paris the same as most big cities, 4:30ish -7:00? (And I will check viamichelin and have a map too.)

TimS

If you don't want to drive all the way into the center of Paris, drop off your car at the Hertz outlet on rue St-Ferdinand near Porte-Maillot. Your closest metro station would be either Porte-Maillot or Argentine.

jpie

You have it right about rush hour in the evening. The morning of course is the same-a bit later than in the US in my experience more like 8-9:30AM. But as Tim mentioned-you could ditch the car near the peripherique if you don't want to go all the way to the center. Also, be careful of traveling into Paris on a Sunday afternoon-or out on Friday-many Parisians flee for the weekend-most towards Normandy-so those autoroutes can be brutal then. If you have a choice it is better to travel other days....

rs899

We dropped a Europcar off near Nation a few years ago after having driven a week in the provinces and it was not fun at all. Even though we had mapped it all out on ViaMichelin, the traffic , non-grid city plan and one-way streets made it extremely stressful...and I have driven many times in Manhattan without being phased. Next time I will dump at an airport or somewhere out by the peripherique

CarolA

"...i f you were going to stay in Manhattan, downtown LA or Chicago would you leave your car at the airport and shlep into town some other way? I doubt it!"

Yes, I would UNLESS I needed it for work. I don't really enjoy driving around major cities lost looking for the "Hertz" location (insert name of rental car here) Airports are generally better organized for this type of thing, have better hours and tend to be less stressful. (Last time I picked up a rental car at LAX I picked it up at the Hilton. Opening time 8 AM.... actual time guy shows up 8:15 or so, and then he was "new" and not really trained! From now on I take the shuttle BACK to LAX and then shuttle to the rental car place. It's open 24/7!)

LA being the exception. But having worked and visited in Chicago and NY, a car was just not needed. So I would not have rented one.

LA, well it's southern California. They don't really have great public transport.

Downtown Atlanta, where I worked for years, is so so.. I only drove if I needed to.

rs899

I think it's easier to find your way OUT of Paris ( or any major city with a ring road)and headed generally in the direction you need to go than it is to find a specific point on a map with precision. So, IMO, rent in town, drop in a suburb, if you can.

Rick

kerouac

Once you have been driving around France, Paris should not scare you anymore (or, as I often add, "you shouldn't have been driving in Paris in the first place!").

I would frankly recommend driving to Paris, taking the périphérique nord, and getting off at Porte de la Chapelle to drive to Gare du Nord, a very easy straight shot into the city. From there, you can take metro line 4 to the Latin Quarter in just a few minutes.

jpie

Yeah I am with kerouac-given where there hotel is, it shouldn't be too hard. And they will have a gps, so they should be okay. It also makes a difference when you are 2 people-it helps to have an extra set of eyes. And another advantage to dropping in Paris itself at a major agency is that Paris is easiest to drive by following the big signs that say things like Gare du Nord, Louvre, Gare Montparnasse, etc. Suburbs can be trickier that way.

blh

Having dropped a car in Paris (Montparnasse) twice, we will always drop at the airport in the future. Both times were a nightmare. Driving in France is not the same as driving in Paris. The rental car places are very difficult to find - at least that has been our experience. Now we drop the car at the airport and take a taxi into Paris or from Brittany, for instance, we dropped the car in Renne and took the train to Paris. Much easier on the nerves.