Should we rent a car for Provence?
 

I am going on a family trip, with 6 people. We are using Nice as our home base, and have 4 days to see the area. Should we rent a car and woudl there even be one large enough for all of us? Or, are we better off using the buses and trains to go to places like Cannes, St. Tropez and Monte Carlo?

Although technically this area is part of "Provence" one usually refers to it as the "Cote d'Azur or Riviera. If you are only going to do the coast towns between the Italian border town of Vintamiglia and Cannes and the close in hill towns such as St.Paul de Vence, Eze etc the trains and buses will work great for you and you don't need a car. St. Tropez can not be reached by train and is farther than I would want to do for a day trip from Nice.

Have a great time; it's one of France's greatest regions.

Larry J

If there were only two of you it might be less expensive to take public transport (provided it even goes where you want to go0. With 6, the cost of the car/van will be less and you can go whenever you want. It is quite difficult to ge 6 people to actually be ready to go somewhere "on time" all the time so you won't have to worry about specific times if you drive yourselves.

My family group of three stayed in Nice for five nights last year. We found the train and bus to be perfect for short daytrips. Frequent service and cheap. Unless you want to go somewhere that is inaccessible by either train or bus, public transportation for six people should still be less that the cost of car rental, gas, and parking--and the hassle that goes with finding a place to park. However, I haven't done the math to support my assertion.

Okay, I decided to do the math. I checked www.autoeurope.com, a consolidator I've used to rent cars in Ireland and France. Auto Europe finds you the best deal from among several rental companies. (For example, in Ireland my car came from Budget and in France it came from Europcar.) The cheapest three-day rental I could find that would hold all of you was a Renault Espace minivan (similar to a Toyota Previa) for $316.96 basic and $518.70 complete. "Basic" means you decline CDW and "complete" means you accept the insurance. You could travel up and down the Cote d'Azur by train and bus for weeks on that kind of money.

Thank you all for your advice!! I appreciate it.

If you're going to be in the Nice region during the warm months, by all means get a car--one with a/c. Being cool and comfortable while getting around is a major plus.

When you say a family trip, will you have children and/or elderly with you? If you have members of the party who cannot carry their own luggage and you have alot of luggage, there is some advantage to a minivan. The other thing is that it gives you some freedom to come and go without worrying about train schedules - again with tired children under age 8, the flexibility is a big plus.

In a party of all able bodied adults, busses and trains save alot of parking hassles.

I think you should definitely get a car. Much of the charm of Provence is found along it's back roads.

The driving is easy. The highways & roads are well marked...you'll love it.

Try calling National Car Rental (National Citer in France). They had the best rates when we went. We also had six people. All of their cars came equiped with a navigational system...the kind where the person talks to you.

It was great!

The Renault Espace will hold only 5 people comfortably; we got it when the rental agency didn't have our requested Renault Scenic, and the Espace wasn't much larger. The one that we had was two rows of seats, the second row holding just 3 people. It's possible that the vehicle has been redesigned to hold more, but I wouldn't call it a real van.

From these guys:

http://www.fastcarhire.com

You can get a Citreon C8 MPV Diesel which seats 7 for $429 for three days with no extra insurance.

OR

You can get 2 Citreon C5s for $223 each for three days with insurance included.

re Jim's comment...I agree his statement in general re Provence except for a short stay on the Cote d'Azur which you ar planning. If you stay in one place and do day trips, public transport is fine.