Renting a car in Avignon: the honest guide

In Avignon the important decision is made before you arrive: almost all rental desks are at the gare Avignon TGV, in the Courtine district south of the Rhône, and not inside the walled town, the intra-muros. If you are sleeping inside the ramparts, pick the car up on the morning of your first day trip: a car parked in the historic centre gives you nothing.

The rest comes down to three habits: insist on a genuinely all-in price, know the deposit and the excess before you book, and photograph the vehicle before you leave the car park. Here is the local context no booking page gives you.

Where to collect the car: two stations, a town, an airport

Avignon has two railway stations and travellers mix them up constantly. The gare Avignon TGV is to the south, at Courtine, on the far side of the Rhône: that is where the high-speed trains stop and where the rental desks are concentrated. The gare Avignon Centre sits right against the ramparts, facing the porte de la République, and a short rail shuttle connects the two in a few minutes.

What the advertised price must include

A daily rate on its own is not a price, it is a shop-window argument. What matters is the total actually owed when you hand the keys back.

• Mileage: unlimited, or capped with a charge beyond it. Between the Luberon, the Alpilles and the Camargue the kilometres add up fast.
• The insurance included and the excess left to you, tyres and windscreen included.
• The fuel policy: returning the tank as you received it is the only arrangement with no trap in it.
• The deposit, its amount and how long it takes to be released.
• Add-ons: additional driver, child seat, young-driver charge, one-way fee.
• The service fee, which should appear as its own separate line.

That is the all-in principle behind a marketplace like DRIVO, where you rent directly from trusted independent and local rental agencies and from private owners: every cost is shown before you pay, the service fee on its own line, with the deposit visible before you book. Cancellation is free up to 48 hours before pick-up, the service fee refunded in that case, and an optional full-protection add-on can lower the excess.

Deposit, excess and the condition report

The deposit is not a payment but a hold placed on the main driver's bank card, released after the return if nothing is reported. The card must be in that driver's name with a high enough limit, and prepaid cards are often refused. The excess decides what you pay if the car scrapes a wall, which in a lane inside the ramparts is not a theoretical scenario.

1. 1Walk round the vehicle with the agent, in daylight, and have every scratch written on the report before you sign.
2. 2Photograph the four corners, the wheels, the windscreen, the roof, the odometer and the fuel level.
3. 3Check that the high-visibility vest and the warning triangle are on board, as French law requires.
4. 4On return, take the same photos and keep everything until the deposit is released.

Parking: ramparts, intra-muros and park-and-ride

Avignon inside the walls is not a car town: a maze of narrow streets, often cobbled and one-way, with stone archways that do not forgive a bad judgement of width. On-street parking is regulated by zones and time-limited, and the rules shift with each council decision, so check the meter or ask the city rather than trusting an article you found online.

• The park-and-ride lots on the edge of town, notably Piot on the île de la Barthelasse and Les Italiens, are what locals do: a shuttle runs into the intra-muros.
• The multi-storey car parks by the ramparts, including the one at the Palais des Papes, suit a few hours, not a week.
• A hotel inside the walls almost never guarantees a space: ask before you book the room.
• Work out your exit gate in advance: porte de la République, porte Saint-Roch or porte de l'Oulle.

July: the Festival d'Avignon changes the rules

During the Festival, streets inside the walls are closed or given over to pedestrians and the city directs drivers to the park-and-ride lots with extra shuttles. Collect the car at the gare Avignon TGV and walk into the centre: the traffic plans, published each year by the municipality, differ from one edition to the next.

Driving around Avignon: mistral, speed limits and restricted zones

The mistral is the first local factor to take on board: this northerly wind comes down the Rhône valley in gusts, sometimes for several days running, and it unsettles tall vehicles most, vans and motorhomes, on a bridge or on an exposed Camargue road.

• Speed limits: 130 km/h on the autoroute in dry weather, 110 km/h in rain; 110 km/h on a dual carriageway with a central separator, 100 km/h in rain; 80 km/h on ordinary two-way roads, raised back to 90 km/h on some roads by the département; 50 km/h in built-up areas.
• In fog, or whenever visibility drops below 50 m, the limit is 50 km/h everywhere.
• Licence held under 3 years: 110 km/h on the autoroute, 100 km/h in rain.
• Alcohol: 0.5 g/L of blood, that is 0.25 mg/L of exhaled air, and 0.2 g/L with a licence under 3 years old.
• Most French autoroutes are tolled, paid by card or by an electronic télépéage badge: ask whether the vehicle carries one.
• Priorité à droite, giving way to the right, still applies at some unmarked junctions in the old villages of the Vaucluse.

For low-emission zones, the zones à faibles émissions, the mechanism is simple: some French cities restrict access according to the Crit'Air sticker, which grades a vehicle from 0 for electric to 5 for the oldest, and Marseille, Lyon, Paris and Grenoble are among the cities operating one. The list and the rules change often: ask the agency for the vehicle's Crit'Air class and check the conditions in force with the official French government service.

The day trips that make the car worth it

Avignon is one of the best bases in Provence: hill villages and wine estates are poorly served by public transport.

• The Luberon: Gordes, the abbaye de Sénanque, the ochre cliffs of Roussillon, Bonnieux and Lourmarin. You park at the bottom of the village and walk up.
• The Alpilles: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Les Baux-de-Provence and its quarries, Fontvieille.
• The Camargue: Arles, the lagoons, Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Flat, straight roads, very exposed to the wind.
• The Vaucluse vineyards: Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, the Dentelles de Montmirail. Plan for a driver who does not taste.

Around Avignon the fabric of independent rental agencies is real, and these agencies have something the big chains do not always offer: someone who knows the region and explains an excess in human language. On DRIVO, listings and support exist in five languages, confirmation is instant, support runs through WhatsApp or the in-app concierge, and the offer also covers vans and motorhomes where local operators have them.