La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

[Cossie]

We had friends who did this way back in 2008. Seemed like a great deal and I think they could also drive it to neighbouring countries. Not sure of the rules now.
We looked at using this service for our first extended trip to France (post kids). But we only needed it for 1 month so not really worth it.

But I agree it is a good deal for long term car hire.

When we had our Renault a few years ago, we picked it up and dropped it off near Frankfurt, can’t remember any places we couldn’t go, only issue being is that the red plate makes you stand out as being a tourist.
I’d definitely do it again.

 

[OZDUCK]

We have done the same leasing exercise twice and found it to be an excellent system - as long as your stay is long enough. I think I worked out that around 20 days was the sweet spot to swap from hiring to leasing. The advantages included full insurance and no extra drivers fees. The only work you have to do is buying the various 'permits' like the German Environmental sticker. The red plate was certainly noticeable but we didn't have any problems.

 

[drron]

My father did lease cars in France for several years back in the 80’s and 90’s. He loved it and had no problems. Leased from most companies as he always got the cheapest at the time.

 

[TheRealTMA]

La Voiture

Next morning we needed to go to Nantes airport to pick up our car. There is a shuttle bus that leaves from just near the Mercure at a cost of EUR10 per person. There is also the option of a bus/tram combination. However, as there are two of us, we still had one "new-customer discount" with Bolt that we could take advantage of. This worked out to about EUR14 and was much more convenient although the pick-up point for Bolt/Uber is further away from the hotel as vehicular access is restricted in front of the railway station.

As mentioned in post #45, we had organised to lease a car through Car-2-Europe. We had booked a car for 2023 but as noted above, we had to cancel/postpone our trip until this year due to medical issues. When booking, you pay a $500 deposit and prior to Covid, the deposit was non-refundable. Fortunately for us, Citroën changed the deposit to fully refundable if you cancel by a certain date, so we got our deposit back in full. In addition, they offered us a repeat customer discount when booking for this year.

I booked a C3 as I like small cars: especially for the narrow streets in medieval villages and for parking. For some reason which escapes me, Citroën contacted us a couple of months out and advised they couldn’t supply the C3 and offered a free upgrade to a C3Aircross which I accepted…

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These cars are supplied tax exempt to non-EU tourists as a Govt incentive to the French car industry. The cost gets cheaper the longer you lease it; ours works out to $31.90 per day for 160 days for a brand new vehicle with full insurance and zero excess. It has a 1.2 litre turbocharged engine with a 6 speed manual gearbox; it has surprising acceleration for such a small engine.

As the tax hasn’t been paid, our car has a red number plate (the only one I have seen since arriving in France) so it is easy to spot in a car park!

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It is also interesting that the number plate has the month and year of the lease expiry on it (12/24) so that the Authorities will know if I don’t hand it back on time.

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Any downsides?

So far we haven’t actually driven it everyday so maybe the $31.90 per day is a little misleading; however, the convenience of having it there whenever we decide to go somewhere is worth it to us;

The lease doesn’t include new tyres if I wear these ones out, so I won’t be doing any burnouts;

Servicing is at my expense. I’ve looked everywhere to find out what the service intervals are and there is nothing in the service/instruction books. However, the car does have a program that will display the distance to the next service on the instrument panel. As best I can tell, the first service is due at 20,000km or 12 months, so hopefully that won’t be a problem.

So far, we are happy with the deal.

Way to go. We've done three leases over the years for Peugeot and Citroen. Good value for medium term rentals and fully covered by insurance. I ran one into a wall in Montepulciano and scrapped the whole left side - no problems. Pick up and drop off in different countries can add significant extra fees but overall good. It's very unlikely you will need to service the car since it's a new one you get with the lease.

 

[Jacques Vert]

We had friends who did this way back in 2008. Seemed like a great deal and I think they could also drive it to neighbouring countries. Not sure of the rules now.

OK; so the main exclusion is the car can't be driven in the United Kingdom. Allowed countries are: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Continental Greece, Croatia, Cyprus (Greek part), Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, France (metropolitan), Monaco, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland & The Vatican. Those countries also include the Balearic & Canary Islands, Sardinia and Sicily, Madeira & the Azores, Corsica and Crete.

 

[Jacques Vert]

only issue being is that the red plate makes you stand out as being a tourist.

Probably a good thing at times: warns others to keep a safe distance! Of course, it may also make you more of a target for thieves, etc.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Looking forward to your updates (esp. where you settled on basing yourselves).

Are you going further north into Brittany? Lots of wonderful places and villages to see there.

Ok; so it's time to answer your questions. As mentioned in post #1, we checked out some possibilities on our last trip to France in 2019. We looked around Montpellier, Collioure, Arles and the coast from Marseille to Nice. That year France was hit with a heatwave with temperatures of 45 celsius for days on end. We were in Monoco and spent 4 or 5 days in our air-conditioned hotel room as it was too hot to go out until at least 6PM. At that stage we decided that Brittany and the Atlantic Coast was more appropriate to our needs.

We also talked to some real estate agents regarding leasing a property for 6 or 12 months. We discovered that you can't rent a property in France unless you have a bank account and you can't get a bank account unless you have an address; and you don't get an address until you rent or buy a property..... Plus you need furniture, etc. So we decided that airBnB might be the answer.

One advantage of airBnB over hotels, etc., is that if you book a long stay you often get a discount whereas that rarely happens with hotels. With airBnB you often see discounts of 20% to 40% for stays of 28 days or more; and sometimes the discounts are much higher. I've even seen a discount of 70%! The downside is that bookings of 28 days or more usually come with quite restrictive cancellation policies: non-refundable after 28 days before your first night is the most flexible I've seen and there are a few in this category. Then there are others where you only have 48 hours to cancel for a refund, even if booking months in advance!

Tell 'em they're dreaming: they expect me to lock in a 28 day booking many months in advance with vitually no flexibility; not going to happen.

Another issue is, what happens if we book somewhere for 6 months and it turns out to be a dump? We decided to compromise and book slabs of 28 days in various places so as to be able to take advantage of a good discount and not be locked in for too long (we can survive for 28 days if we find the place is not to our liking).

So +1 drew up a list of "must haves" and we started our search.

 

[FlyingFiona]

We discovered that you can't rent a property in France unless you have a bank account and you can't get a bank account unless you have an address; and you don't get an address until you rent or buy a property.....

That's France for you. It's the most infuriating country at times.

 

[Jacques Vert]

La Mer

Time to explain the title of this trip report. Of course, "La Mer" translates as "the sea". I've lived most of my life on the coast and see no reason to change now. I love the sea and spent the latter part of my working life messing about with boats. For this trip, being on or near the Atlantic Coast should hopefully avoid the extreme temperatures that we experinced on our last trip.

"Le canal" does NOT refer to the canal Saint-Martin in Paris that was discussed in post #35. It's all about another canal that we will be exploring in late September; but you'll have to wait until then.

Finally, I hope "Les Pyrénées" is self-explanatory.

So "La Mer":

as noted above we searched airBnB for appropriate accommodation on the west coast between Brittany and Bordeaux. I sailed into many ports and fishing villages on this coast almost 50 years ago so I had a pretty good idea of what the area was like. +1 found a 1 bedroom apartment that met our requirements and, as I had visited the town/city before and knew it to be a nice place, we decided to book it for the next 28 days...

 

[VPS]

I’m loving the suspense but of course want more and quickly

 

[ellen10]

Eagerly following along too! I love all things France

 

[TheRealTMA]

OK; so the main exclusion is the car can't be driven in the United Kingdom. Allowed countries are: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Continental Greece, Croatia, Cyprus (Greek part), Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, France (metropolitan), Monaco, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland & The Vatican. Those countries also include the Balearic & Canary Islands, Sardinia and Sicily, Madeira & the Azores, Corsica and Crete.

Sometimes you can be just lucky I suggest!

Do watch out for the voiture voleurs and never leave anything visible in the car when parkling for lunch, tourism etc.

 

[Jacques Vert]

La Rochelle












No, that's not us; nor this bloke either...

 

[Jacques Vert]

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. It has approximately 80,000 inhabitants and is situated on the Bay of Biscay. The city is centred around the old port and the whole of the old town is pedestrianised. Although it is definitely a tourist town in summer, it has a lovely ambiance and doesn’t feel “overly touristy”. +1 & I both feel that we could live in La Rochelle; in fact, we had only been here a couple of days when we contacted our host to see if we could extend our stay for another 28 days (unfortunately it is already booked).

The city has three harbours in addition to the old port (fishing, pleasure and commercial). It also has a very interesting history; but more on that later. It has a maritime museum, a large aquarium, a university, a small botanical garden and a number of small, interesting museums.

It is said to have a pleasant climate although so far the nights have been surprising cool. La Rochelle hosts its own Film Festival and also has one of the largest music festivals in France, the Francofolies (again, more on these later).

Some more photos…

 

[Jacques Vert]

Our Digs

We booked a one bedroom apartment on airBnB. It turned out to be just what we wanted. It's on the first floor but three is a lift; very handy for getting bags or the shoppoing upstairs but at other times we use the stairs. It has a full kitchen which is a little cramped but fine for our needs, ensuite bathroom and shower, separate toilet, washing machine, TV, etc. There are a couple of heaters but, like most apartments here, it is not airconditioned. It also has secure off-street parking; you need to swipe a card to lower the bollards to gain access to the old city.

 

[SYD]

Yes, La Rochelle is quite nice. I visited on a cruise ship about 10 years ago.

The industrial port (out of town) is a dump but we were pleasantly surprised when the shuttle dropped us in town. I’d certainly go back if I was over that way.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Le Marché

Every town in France has its market and La Rochelle’s is excellent. Best of all, it’s at the end of our street, a mere two minutes’ walk. And there are two boulangeries between us and the market, plus two more within the market.

The market operates every day from very early morning until around 1PM and on Wednesdays and Saturdays, it extends into the surrounding streets.

The strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries are excellent, as are the cherries; so sweet! There are also stalls selling fish, oysters, mussels and all kinds of seafood, various meats (beef, chicken, pork, etc., even horse on one day), pasta, wine, vegetables and, of course, cheese.


























As you can see the produce is beautiful, and sooo fresh. On our first visit we bought a fancy lettuce that had obviously been cut that morning; we were still eating it two weeks later and it was as crisp as the day we bought it. If the Daily Star had bought their lettuce from the market in La Rochelle, Liz Truss might still be the UK’s Prime Minister.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Once the market is finished,



this guy comes along....




And within an hour you would never have known there had been a market...

 

[FlyingFiona]

Adding half a pig's head to my shopping list as we speak....!

(Impressive market and equally impressive clean up.)

 

[ellen10]

I love the French markets! My go to in any French town or city. And oh those berries so sweet!
I'm salivating over all those wonderful food photos.