Part II of Dos: Rent a Car

From Paris we decided to travel across the country and visit the cities Chamonix and Annecy. Initially, we thought we might be able to travel by train or by plane, but we ran into a few problems. One, unlike our experiences in other European countries, we were unable to find a sleeper train that traveled to the southeastern part of the country. The closest we could find was a train that took you an hour outside Annecy and then it was up to you to make the final part of the trip. The cost for this was absolutely ridiculous and would require a day plus of travel. Secondly, a plane ticket to this part of the country was equally as expensive and again you were left with finding some type of transportation to the your final destination. Therefore, we decided to rent a car. I can't express how much fun this was to have our own car and the freedom to go explore.

So, after four days in Paris we rented a car, quickly remembered how to drive stick, conquered a French roundabout of seven lanes and set off across the country. The French highways were easily marked, clean and interesting to travel on. I say interesting because unlike America, French drivers are weird. For one, it seemed like we were the only ones going the speed limit, and while we were traveling at the speed limit in the RIGHT LANE, a car would come speeding up on our bumper, ride it for a few miles and then finally we would get out of the way. Now, I should mention that there were usually no cars in the left lane. So, I'm not sure why one, a car would come up so fast on us in the right lane, not use the left lane and make us get over? Interesting right? The other interesting part of the French highway are the immediate changes in speeds. It seemed like through the whole stretch the speed limit, for no apparent reason, would shift from 70km to 40km without any real warning. And, then to compound the drastic shift in speed, there would be a traffic camera to take a picture of you being an idiot. To be honest, I'm pretty sure we got our picture snapped, but have yet received a ticket.

The last thing you should be prepared for, while traveling by car in France, are the tolls on the highway. These tolls can be slightly expensive, but when weighed against a train or plane ticket, they are still the less expensive option. The only truly expensive part of the tolls are the fact that, if you miss a turn off or decide to get off the highway, you have to pay a toll. We thought we missed one turnoff, and as we doubled back, we had to re-pay the toll. So, just make sure you are truly prepared to get off the highway, and literally, pay for any mistakes.

Check out http://www.autoroutes.fr/en/routes.htm if you want to calculate your costs for gas, tolls and get directions. We found this website to be very helpful in comparing prices against train and plane travel.