Hi All,

We are planning on going to Loire Valley on Sunday from Paris by train and are having trouble finding an open car rental place when we arrive. Any suggestions? Should we change dates? Please help, we leave next week!

Cheers,
~apple

Do you have to pick up the car on Sunday?
Do you have to pick up the car in Loire Valley?
You will get better responses if you share your objectives and constraints.

Yes and yes. We will be in the Loire Valley for 2.5 days, arriving Sunday afternoon and leaving Tuesday afternoon. We have do not want to rent a car and drive from Paris after reading some other people's experiences.

I did read somewhere that you may call and request the rental company leave the car with the hotel next to St. Pierre des Corps train station. Anyone with experience doing this?

The German website wwww.holidayautos.de offers rentals on Sundays from Tours Loire Valley Airport.

Strangely, the U.S. site of www.holidayautos.com does not offer rentals in Tours. The U.K. site of www.holidayautos.com does offer two stations in Tours but none that is open on Sundays. Pretty strange.

I would suggest to call Holidayautos and ask them about a rental from the station at the airport.

Or you call directly the rental car agencies which have offices at the airport. http://www.tours.aeroport.fr/page_en.php?id=25

The website says the opening times depend on arrivals of Ryanair flights. Thery is an arrival of a flight from London on Sundays at 13:25, hence I expect that rental car stations should be open between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Sundays.

Thank you for looking into that. I will contact holiday autos tmrw. We were planning on training from Montparnasse to S.t. Pierre des Corps. Thanks again.

I have seen that the National / Citer / Alamo station at Tours Airport is open from 7:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M. on sundays.

Just called kemwel rental car and they said all rental car places are closed on sunday. And at the airport, they only do meet and greet for people getting off the plane. Any other suggestions?

Yes, pick up your car in Paris. It really isn't hard to drive out of the city... I don't know where you've been reading all the horror stories.

Picking up a car as early as you can on Sunday will find Parisian streets almost empty. If you really can't stomach the idea pick up a car at Orly.

Rob

Agree that getting out of Paris by road needn;t be difficult. Pick a rental office near the peripherique and you won't have to drive far in paris proper. (And frankly driving is Paris really isn;t difficult as long as you have a map and a decent sense of direction.)

Kemwel is no rental car agency, it is just a consolidator. So, they do not know about opening times precisely.

If I open the website http://www.citer.fr/ and select Tours Airport and enter a sunday, say May 23, 14:00 the website displays "station ouverte" - station open. And if I click on the "info" symbol, it displays the opening hours: 7:30 to 19:30 on sundays (tuesdays closed).

This means, you can simply reserve your car via the internet.

Interestingly, if you open www.national.com, restrictions apply.

Obviously, the American rental car databases have insufficient information. Use the French website or call the station in Tours directly. I am sure, they speak English. Tel : 02 47 44 80 04
Fax : 02 47 46 17 53