Little Black Guidebook

I prefer trains which go city center to city center, and so far haven’t rented a car in Europe. This article: Trains in Italy, no Cars Needed Here reminded me of how much I hate Italian trains (remember my Me Vs. Trenitalia.com post?). I hate booking them on their horrible website and I hate being hours late because the Italian conductor decided to take a super long coffee break in and didn’t tell us anything for hours. But would I really want to rent a car in Italy? No, that’s an even scarier thought!

So I am now somewhat more train skeptical and this fall we will be renting a car for the first time in Europe. There are just certain places that its complicated to get to using public transportation. It is possible to go Bayeux, France to Mont St. Michel by a combination of train and bus, but it costs more and takes longer than a 1 day car rental so that’s what we’re doing.

So we have a day long rental in France and I am in driving lessons again! My neighbors are scared. “There she goes again, lurching down the street with her white-knuckled friend hanging on and hoping she doesn’t kill his clutch.” Grab the children! Actually I do myself a slight diservice, I only threw him against the windshield once.

My naturally cautious nature had me smoothly and slowly letting the clutch out after only a few minutes. Now I just have to figure out how to smoothly transition between gears, both up and down so that I am not freaking out over mental checklists of procedures and can drive like a normal person. I have successfully mastered first and second gear and am now ready to leave the 15mph neighborhood and graduate to the 35 mph side streets. Watch out world, I’m going European!

Oh and for those of you going Bayeux to Mont St. Michel by public transport:

• Train Bayeux to Pontorson (book at http://www.voyages-sncf.com/), takes 1 hr 45 minutes, there were 2 trains with same day returns available for our August date), cost 20.80Euro
• Example: 09:30-11:15 (Bayeux-Pontorson) return 15:38-17:26 (Pontorson-Bayeux)
• Bus ride for the 5 miles Pontorson to Mont St. Michel, buses are coordinated with train times (times for line 6 Pontorson-Le Mont St Michel http://www.mobi50.com/, 13 minutes one way, 2.20E one way)
• Total cost for two people roundtrip = (20.80+2.20)x4=92E
• Total time on there = 3 hrs 45 minutes
• Total cost for 1 day car rental= 83.61E + gas.
• But, even though gas will eat our savings we could see something other than Le Mont St Michel that day for instance a side trip to Honfleur is now a possibility with the time saved not being forced into a particular itinerary.