We are renting a car and driving from Paris to Provence - not sure which city yet - can anyone tell me about how many hours the trip will take?
thanks!

Driving straight through - 7 or 8 hours or so.

Thank you Tuck- that is great. Is the drive quite beautiful? Do you recommend a certain way?

We drove straight through from DeGalle to Arles and it took about 6 hours (granted my husband drives fast, but not that fast). We went through the west end of burgundy, through Lyon and then over the mountains to Avignon to Arles. There was some very pretty scenery especially once you get out of the Paris Metropolitan area until you hit the mountains in the south which was pretty industrial.

According to Michelin, Marseille is 775 km from Paris and the speed limit on the Auto Route is 130. That's 6 hours right there. Allow time to get out of Paris (or from CDG).

I wouldn't say it's beautiful, not ugly either. It's a high-speed thruway.

Thank you both for your replies.

It might be more time efficient to take the TGV to Avignon and rent there. I have heard the drive is not particularly interesting. Two+ hour train trip.

Sorry, but what is the TGV?

The TGV is the French regional train. In retrospect, that probably is the best way to do it, although we liked the drive the train would be a quicker alternative. We didn't because we couldn't handle the plane and then getting right on a train.

For that matter, assuming you're flying into Paris, just fly on to Nice!

Or depending on where exactly you're headed, fly to Marseille.

Having done lots of long autoroute trips in France, I'd find some other way to get their besides driving -there's some nice scenery here and there, but mostly it's just a very grueling day.