Thank you for your replies about unmanned gas stations and tollbooths.

Christina - we will be driving in Provence and that was exactly where I was wondering what the situation was as we've never been there before. And I'm glad to hear from another poster that they found the tollbooths to be manned and/or accepting cash. I'm not sure which roads we're driving from Dijon but I didn't want to be surprised. Thanks again.

Frankly, I am often on the road on Sundays and holidays and I would be quite worried if I could not use the automatic pumps. It's true also that I am a cheapskate and do not like paying 0.20€ more per liter of fuel. However, this is probably just a very minor blip in the travel budget of most people.

Never ever on a Sunday, a Sunday...and rarely at lunch.

In the three weeks we were driving in "rural France" last June, we only had a problem with finding an attended station once. It was in Fumel during the lunch hour on a Saturday. Per local advice, it was the closest town that even had attended stations near Chateau Bonaguil and we didn't want to chance finding anything en route to the Dordogne. There were several supermarches with pumps, but we had to drive around a bit before we could find one with an attendant before 2 p.m. I guess it's just something for which traveling Americans need to have a contingency plan while on the road until our CC companies get with the program.

kerouac, I always make sure I have enough gas so I don't have to worry about filling up on Sunday. As I said, when I'm on vacation, I'm never doing that kind of long distance driving that I could use up a tank in one day, anyway. If I did have to, no, 20 centimes per liter wouldn't bother me as I only rent cars with small tanks to begin with. Also, I think what bothers you is different on a vacation than in regular life. IN regular life, yes, I plan and know where the cheapest gas stations are for filling up all the time, on vacation, that isn't a priority to worry about that.