Anyone have any advice for renting a car in Europe, specifically France? I've never rented a car in Europe so don't know if it's different than in North America. Also looking for advice for Normandy. We have a two-day tour booked and will have a few days on our own.

Make time for Mont Saint Michel. You will not be disappointed! As for renting a car, we rented in Rouen, drove to Bayeux, Mont St. Michel & on to Tours (Loire Valley). We had a GPS which turned out to be handy, but we also took a detour here & there when something caught our eye. Stumbled on to a Canadian war cemetery completely by happy accident. Hubby took care of the rental & says it was no different. We opted not to buy their insurance because we had coverage through our Visa. I'm not sure, but they likely have predominantly standard (manual) transmissions.

Paris is horrible to drive in. Be sure to have a gps

Agreed Sarah. That's why we rented in Rouen (incidentally where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake); we started in Paris where we relied on the metro, then took a train to Rouen & drove the aforementioned route, turning in our rental in Tours.

I search through carrentals.com and other sites like kayak. They usually then link you to sites like Avis, Hertz, Sixt, etc. Generally in France the rentals are quite reasonable if you book from here in advance. Most rentals are manuals, so if you want an automatic, expect to pay about $100 more per week. Read the small print very carefully, especially if you are dropping the car off in a different city. I booked through autoeurope for April for under $300 for the week for an automatic in Bordeaux and dropping off in Nice. Reading the small print, it was an additional $450 charge for dropping at a different location. Cancelled that and booked again through Avis for basically the same price - with just a 40 euro drop fee.

Be sure to get your International Driver's Permit before you go!!

We use Europcar and it's always been good

autoeurope.ca they were awesome for me, had the car 9 weeks and it was cheeper than taking the train ($700). Only catch was that i could not go into western eurpoe

If you have a gold visa then you shouldn't have to pay for extra insurance

Hi Wayne, I rented directly from EuropCAR in Nantes and it was a pretty good price. There are EurpoCAR depots everywhere in France, you may be better off taking the train out of Paris and renting from a nearby Rental depot located near the train station. I'd recommend booking online first and then pick up ... I'd also recommend looking at your credit card coverages, some of them offer free international car rental insurance waivers. I had my VISA email me the .pdf and I saved a lot of money. I also highly recommend an old school gps, EuropCAR has them for rent but it's cheaper to buy one ... International data can be a killer, but an updated GPS was really helpful for us. I don't think you need an international licence, I didn't need one anyway. Just passport and Canadian licence. You'll have to get used to the roundabouts, but after a while, it was really easy and fun to drive in small town France.
If you're into castles or Medieval cathedrals, check out Mont St. Michel ... It's amazing, I'd also recommend the Loire Valley if you have time (Tours area is where we went).

I rented a car in Toulouse last April for one week. I agree with the advice of previous posters, especially about having an international driving permit.
I relied on the car rental insurance with my TD aeroplan Visa. It was helpful to print off both the French and English versions of the coverage certificates available on the website of Visa Canada. The agent at Avis actually asked to see it!

Thanks, everyone, for all of the advice. Many of your tipsare going into my file for this trip. Saperlipopette, I've sent you a PM.

We rented a car this summer in Italy through AMA, they were very easy to deal with. We also got the international drivers license through them, very easy to do. We didn't book a GPS when we booked the vehicle and should've because they were all booked when we picked up our car. Have a great trip, sounds amazing!

We've rented cars in Europe through AMA and they were very easy to deal with and they gave us great prices.