France by Car
Getting Started

The Eurostar provides as much as any traveler could ever want in speed and comfort. The trip from London to Paris took only about three hours with a minimum of noise. I have now ridden on a number of the high-speed trains, and I do like the convenience of getting from one place to another easily; but you can't really enjoy watching the scenery--it moves by so fast that you become a little disoriented. Also, on this trip, I was disappointed by the actual trip through the Chunnel. You have almost no notion that you are approaching the tunnel. Suddenly the light turns to dark. Fifteen or twenty minutes later it becomes light again, and soon you are stopping in the middle of nowhere (actually, the Calais Eurostar station).  On board the Eurostar
Eiffel Tower We stayed at the Grand Hotel Leveque on the rue Cler just a short distance from the Eiffel Tower on both our first night in France, and on the last night before we returned to England. In looking back through our pictures, I realize that we have very few that are of the Eiffel Tower itself. It is in the background of many pictures, but it is so difficult to get a clear shot of it from anywhere except the Trocadero that we usually take a couple of looks at it through the viewfinder and then give up the effort. (We still haven't been to the top; maybe on the next trip.)
When we decided to rent a car, we knew that it would be impossible to drive in or around Paris, so we started looking at alternatives for places we could pick it up. When we called Hertz, we found out that our options were even more limited than we had first thought. In very few cities in France can one rent a car with automatic transmission. Even in choosing Chartres, a reasonably large city, the company had to make arrangements to have an automatic delivered there for us. So, the first view out of our windshield was of the great Cathedral. Picking up the car in Chartres
The Car The car we were given was a small Peugeot. We had expected to get a Renault Clio, but none were available so this was the substitute (and a great substitute it was). When we made the arrangements in the United States, we had asked for automatic transmission and air conditioning. When we picked up the car, we couldn't figure out how to turn the air condiitoning on--with good reason: there was none. We were informed that in France, this class of car does not come with air conditioning. The photo is of the Hotel Romantica, near Honfleur. One of the best parts of having the car was being able to stay in little places like this one.

Normandy - The Loire- The Dordogne
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