Renting a car in Rennes: the honest guide

In Rennes, three pick-up points cover almost every rental: the counters at the main railway station, those at Rennes-Bretagne airport in Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande, and the neighbourhood or out-of-town agencies strung along the rocade, the city's ring road. If you arrive by train, the station wins almost every time; if you land or leave early, the airport is more flexible; and for a van or a house move, it is the outskirts that have the vehicles.

The rest of the decision happens somewhere other than the map: in what the advertised price actually covers, in the deposit held on your bank card, in the condition report you sign at pick-up, and in how the kilometres are counted. This guide follows the order in which you will meet those questions, from booking to handing the keys back.

Station, airport or neighbourhood: where to collect the car

Rennes station is the most convenient pick-up point in the département. The counters sit together on the north side, in the business district that has grown up around the station, a few minutes on foot from the platforms and the métro stop. The drawback is familiar to locals: driving out of there means extracting yourself from a dense, frequently rebuilt quarter, with bus lanes and one-way streets that shift from one season to the next. Allow yourself some slack and, if you can, leave outside the rush hours.

Rennes-Bretagne airport, which everyone here still calls Saint-Jacques, plays a different tune. The counters are inside the terminal, facing arrivals, and the cars wait in the car park directly opposite: you are on the road within minutes, with the ring road immediately at hand. That is the right choice if your route starts on the coast or in southern Brittany and the centre of Rennes is not on your list. Opening hours follow the flight schedule, which helps for an early start but complicates a return in the middle of the night.

What the advertised price has to include

A rental price only means something once you know what sits inside it. When you compare, look for these lines in black and white, and treat an offer that hides them as not actually cheaper.

• The compulsory insurance and the excess that goes with it, that is, what you would still owe if the car were damaged.
• The mileage: unlimited, or an allowance with a price per kilometre beyond it. For a return trip to the far west of Brittany, that difference is not theoretical.
• The fuel policy: full tank out, full tank back is the only formula that does not make you pay for an invisible service.
• The additional driver, the young driver, the child seat, the bike rack, the satnav: each one can be billed separately.
• One-way charges if you drop the car somewhere else, in Saint-Malo, Nantes or Brest for instance.

That is exactly the logic a marketplace like DRIVO follows, connecting travellers with independent local agencies and with private owners: every cost is shown before you pay, including the DRIVO service fee, which appears on its own line and is refunded with a free cancellation or if the agency cancels. Cancellation stays free up to 48 hours before pick-up, confirmation is instant, and you see the security deposit and what is included before you book. An optional full-protection add-on can be added at checkout to lower the excess.

Deposit, excess, condition report: the three words that matter

Confusing the deposit with the excess is the leading cause of a bad surprise. The deposit is a card hold: a sum frozen on your card, not charged, released after the car comes back. The excess is what you really pay if the car is damaged. Both figures are in the contract; ask for them before you sign, not afterwards.

1. 1Check which kind of card is required. Most agencies want a credit card in the main driver's name and refuse debit or prepaid cards.
2. 2Make sure your limit absorbs the deposit: the sum stays unavailable for the whole rental and for a few days afterwards.
3. 3Do the condition report with a member of staff, in daylight. Every scratch, every windscreen chip, every kerbed wheel must be written on the sheet before you drive off.
4. 4Photograph the car from every angle, interior included, with the date. Do it again on return and ask for a joint check rather than simply dropping the keys.

Driving and parking in Rennes without losing your temper

Rennes is a city of ring road and métro, not a city of cars. The old centre, around place Sainte-Anne and the timber-framed streets, is crossed on foot in a quarter of an hour, and traffic there is deliberately constrained. The local reflex is simple: leave the car at the gates of the city and take the métro. The park-and-ride lots of the metropolitan transport network are built for that, plugged into both lines.

• On paid street bays, the hyper-centre and the ring just outside it do not share the same tariff or the same maximum stay: read the meter, and note that paying by phone app is now standard.
• Blue zones are free but time-limited, and require a parking disc on the dashboard. Agencies do not always supply one: ask at the counter.
• On Sundays and public holidays the kerbside relaxes noticeably. On a Saturday daytime it is the opposite, especially around the markets.
• The park-and-ride lots are designed for the car-plus-métro combination, with a transport ticket validated on the way out.
• The low-emission zone system rests on the Crit'Air sticker, which grades vehicles by engine type. Perimeter, timetable and exemptions change often: check with Rennes Métropole and the official French government source before you travel, and ask the agency whether the car carries a sticker.

Getting out of Rennes: the Emerald Coast, Mont-Saint-Michel bay, Brocéliande

This is the real reason to rent here. Rennes sits at the centre of a star of fast, toll-free roads, and most of Brittany's great set pieces fit inside a morning's drive. The car is not there to visit Rennes: it is there to get you out of it.

• The côte d'Émeraude, the Emerald Coast, up the northern dual carriageway: walled Saint-Malo, Cancale and its oyster beds, Dinard and the Rance estuary, Dinan further up the river.
• The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel to the east, provided you check the tide tables and aim to arrive early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
• Brocéliande and the forest of Paimpont to the west, where no train will take you: the archetype of the day out that only works by car.
• Eastwards, the medieval towns of Ille-et-Vilaine, Vitré and Fougères with their castles, routinely left off the itineraries.

Two Breton habits. First the weather: a changeable sky does not cancel a day on the coast, it shifts it by a few hours. Then the summer Saturdays, when the ring road and the roads to the sea fill up from mid-morning; leaving early changes everything. And if your plan looks more like a tour of Brittany in a campervan or a house move in a van, those categories exist as rentals too, wherever local supply allows.

Speed, alcohol, equipment: the French rules in plain words

You are driving a car you do not know, on roads you are discovering. French limits are quick to learn, but they change with the rain and with how long you have held your licence.

• Licence held under 3 years: 110 km/h on the autoroute, 100 km/h in rain. The rule applies to a foreign driver who passed recently as well.
• Alcohol: 0.5 g/L of blood, that is 0.25 mg/L of exhaled air. With a licence under 3 years old the limit drops to 0.2 g/L, in practice zero tolerance.
• A warning triangle and a high-visibility vest must be in the vehicle: check them at pick-up, because you are the one who will be asked for them.
• Most French autoroutes are tolled, payable by card or by an electronic télépéage badge. The main Breton trunk roads, by contrast, are free.
• Priorité à droite, priority to traffic coming from the right, still applies at some unmarked junctions, especially in older villages and on small country roads.

The mistakes that cost real money at the counter

• Accepting a car without rereading the damage sheet, because a queue is waiting behind you.
• Discovering the excess waiver at the last moment and buying it at counter rates, when it is a decision to make at booking.
• Booking a category too large for the lanes of the old centre and for Rennes underground car parks.
• Forgetting that the deposit ties up part of your card limit for the whole trip.