Loire Valley to Frankfort Ger.
 

Thanks for all the help so far! We (4 adults) want to go to Frankfort after a stay in the Loire Valley where we will have a car. Should we go by train back through Paris to Frankfort, should we drive back to Paris and then take a train to Frankfort, or should we keep the rental car and drive directly to Frankfort from Amboise. Convenience? Cost?
Thanks, in advance.
J.

Well - if you already have a car in the Loire - and want to have a car in Germany - I would simply hang onto the car and drive to FF - unless your car rental compnay has a huge drop off charge. The lower rate for one longer rental vs two shorter ones might easily balance this out - plus you won;t have to do all that backtracking.

Are you short on time - do you want a place to stay overnight - or would you drive straight through?

The first question is: where are you renting the car? I suspect not in Amboise..perhaps in either Blois or Tours...or are you renting it in Paris?

And how are you getting to the Loire in the first place?
I somehow doubt you'd be able to drive to Frankfurt as fast as you could get there on the train (and the latter with a lot less stress) however you have to figure in the costs as I suspect there will be a drop charge if renting a car in France and dropping it in Germany.

Just a gentle reminder: when you're googling information on your German destination, it would be best to spell it with a "u" - otherwise you might wind up in Kentucky. ;)

Actually, travel times are quite smilar. Mappy shows actual road time as 7.5 to 8 hours - naturally more with stops for lunch and gas.

The trains - which all require at least 1 change - and sometimes 2 or 3 - take from 8 to 12 hours - depending on what time you leave Amboise.

I would think car less expensive - not to mention more convenient (no unrenting and then renting again- never mind having to deal with luggage on trains) - but both options certainly seem possible.

Thanks everyone. As of now the plan is to go by train from Paris to Tours, and pick up the car there. So the first question is, should we return it to Tours, and take the train back to Paris (and then on to Frankfurt)?

Ultimately we want to go on to Prague, so another question is should we just go Paris-Prague and skip Frankfurt, or should we spend the night in Frankfurt and then go on to Prague the next day. We have nothing we want to do in Frankfurt, it just seemed a good stopping point to spend the night.

I'm having difficulty finding schedule information for the trains. Does anybody have a site to recommend?

Jay