Car Rental in France
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When renting a car in France you will first have to choose what type of vehicle you want for example: Mini, Economy, Compact, Intermediate, Standard, Full-Size, Premium, Luxury, Minivans / MPVs or other vehicles such as trucks and special vehicles.
Rent your car from the following cities - Agen, Aix-En-Provence, Albi, Amiens, Angers, Antibes, Arles, Auch, Aurillac, Avignon, Beauvais, Bergerac, Besancon, Beziers, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Boulogne Sur Mer, Brest, Caen, Calais, Cannes, Carcassonne, Chambery, Chamonix, Cherbourg, Clermont Ferrand, Colmar, Dijon, Dunkerque, Epernay, Epinal, Fontainebleau, Frejus, Geneva, Grasse, Grenoble, Jaux Compiegne, La Rochelle, Le Havre, Le Mans, Lens, Lille, Limoges, Lorient, Lyon, marseille, Menton, Metz, Millau, Montauban, Monaco / Montecarlo, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nancy, Nantes, Nice Car Rental, Nimes, Paris Airport Car Rental, Paris Center, Paris East, Car Hire Paris North, Paris Train Stations, Paris West, Pau, Perigueux, Perpignan, Poitiers, Quimper, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, Saint Malo, Strasbourg, Toulon, Toulouse, Tours, Val D'isere, Vannes, Vichy and others.
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Roads range from the narrow single-lane roads in the countryside to major highways. Most towns and cities were built before the general availability of the automobile and thus city centers tend to be unwieldy for cars. Keep this in mind when renting: large cars can be very unwieldy. It often makes sense to just park and then use public transportation.
Most of the freeway (autoroute) links are toll roads. Some have a toll station giving you access to a section, others have entrance and exit toll stations. Don't lose your entrance ticket or you will be charged for the longest distance. All toll stations accept major credit cards but you can use the automatic booth only if your card is equipped with a chip.
When driving out of towns, look for toutes directions ("all outside directions") or autres directions ("all other outside directions"), which will point you to highways. Highways and roads are classified into:
Axxx: freeway (red number sign)
Nxxx: national road (red number sign)
Dxxx: departmental road (yellow number sign)
There also are municipal (white number sign) and forestry roads (green number sign).
Highways are signposted with the direction of towns or cities in the direction you're going as well as the highway number. Directions in green are for major destinations through major highways; in blue, for directions through freeways. Péage means "toll". To pay toll is quite easy - slide you credit card and go. Sometimes you get the ticket to calculate the distance and fair, so with the ticket you slide the ticket and then the card into the same slot.
If you have time, use the smaller roads. The speed is decent and you don't pay on tolls. But you have the opportunity to drive through small towns and vilages, stop and grab a bite in the restaurants or buy local wine. Though it's recommended to use GPS or have a good map, the navigation could be sometimes tricky. There are a lot of circles instead of traffic lights, which could confuse your sense of direction.
Detailed maps (1/200000 scale approximately) are highly advisable unless you stick only to main cities and main highways. Michelin and IGN provide good maps.
France drives on the right.
Unless clearly posted on the road you are using, you are supposed to yield to any vehicle coming from your right from another public thoroughfare. However, roads generally work along a system of "priorities": main thoroughfares will be flagged as "priority" and all crossroads will yield.
"Priorité à droite" - the old French system was to give priority to all traffic coming from the right. This still applies at unmarked crossroads in the country, in small villages, etc. However for major routes this has now changed. Yellow lozenge signs indicate that you have priority on major roads; a yellow lozenge with a bar shows you do not have priority. Watch out; for drivers from other countries this is one of the most confusing aspects of French driving.
Most cars in France have stick shifts, which you may find difficult or even impossible to operate if you have only driven automatic transmissions. If you rent a car and you want an automatic, be sure to explicitly request so in advance.
Many personal cars run on diesel; make sure you know whether your car is Diesel or gasoline. Diesel fuel in gas stations is known as gasoil, gazole or diesel; gasoline is known as Super 95 or Super 98 (all cars accepting 95 accept 98; almost all cars only require 95). Gasoline tends to be more expensive on freeways, and less expensive in supermarkets (Casino, Auchan, Intermarché, Carrefour, etc.). Better to rent the car, which uses Diesel fuel, it's cheaper and more economic than gasoline.