Hi all, I will be heading from Stuttgart with my parents to Provence in July. We plan to rent a car there, after having read many helpful answers to my question on this forum about car vs. public transit. What I'm wondering now is, is it necessary to take the train to Provence then? The only one available the day/time I'd be leaving (I'm on a schedule since I'm finishing up a summer study program in Stuttgart and I'm meeting up with my parents my last day of courses) is a train to Paris, then connecting and going to Nimes, which is one city we'd like to check out. What do you all think?

Thanks! This forum will be a lifesaver I think...

I'll be posting in another topic about what to see as well.

Check out the PREMS fares on sncf.com. It may be a bit too early -60 or 90 days ahead I think it is. Also, DB has some sparpreis fares, but I am not sure how they compare with sncf. There should be some good priced TGV fares from Paris to Nimes.

Probably will not be cost effective to rent and drop car across borders, but you can look and see.

Thanks! You're right, I hadn't thought about the border crossing with a rental being more expensive. That will be taken into consideration.

Why not drive? It's not that far, and you will certainly want a car in Provence. It would be a bit silly to go from Stuttgart to Paris to Nimes. We rented a car in France and returned it in Germany (we were living in Stuttgart at the time) and there was only a small fee.

Hi SG,

I've looked up the train schedules and the discount airlines.

You can't get there from Stuttgart.

This coould be a time when paying a rental car drop-off fee will be a good way to do it.

Try www.kemwel.com, www.easyterra.com, www.autoeurope.com, www.sixt.com and www.gemut.com.

If you want to avoid the penalty for cross-border rentals, take the train to Strasbourg and rent from there.
But compare prices for rentals from Germany plus penalty with prices for rentals within France w/o. Since the overall rental price can be lower in Germany, the difference may be smaller than expected (esp. when you add the costs for train going from Stuttgart to Strasbourg).

Thanks, yeah I had looked and the train would be a whole day with many train changes and yeah, the trip goes completely out of the way. I think we'll take the train to Strasbourg and rent a car there. The train ticket is fairly inexpensive, not much more than an extra day's rental. In fact since we could leave in the evening from Stuttgart after my last class is over I thought it might be best to spend the night in Strasbourg and leave in the morning with the rental. That way we get a head start instead of waiting to leave Stuttgart in the morning.