Pyrenees Trip - Airport, Direction, and other tips

[yoni162]

Greetings all,
Planning a Pyrenees driving trip this coming Sep (optimistic), and was hoping for some insights on some specific questions. I did search & go over this thread (https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=45&t=1386565&i=0) which was great.

Question 1 - Airport
As opposed to the majority here I guess, we are not arriving from Europe, but flying in..the main servicing airports I see are Toulouse (closest), Bordeaux (a bit farther) & Barcelona (forces you to drive the Pyrenees East to West, and probably a one-way rental. Or a roundtrip which doesn't make much sense..). Toulouse seems the most reasonable, however the rental car selection seems pretty dull. Barcelona Airport has very interesting cars So, any suggestions on that matter? Recommended car rental in Toulouse perhaps?

Question 2 - Direction
This is maybe simpler. Which direction is in your mind best to drive the Pyrenees across? One reason I'm inclined towards West to East is not having the sun in our eyes in the afternoon heading west. Any other recommendations here or there? Of course it's a semi-related to the previous question.

Appreciate the help.

[yoni162]

Hi guys,
Thanks for the tips! Heard a lot about San Sebastian..
So Perpignan/Carcasson are fairly small airports, I think for us only the bigger ones are relevant..
Currently the plan is landing in Toulouse->San Sebastian, driving the Pyrenees going east & back to Toulouse..However Toulouse airport car rentals seem to offer fairly boring cars. Anyone ever rent from any other luxury/sports car rentals in Toulouse & can share their experience?

[yoni162]

Noted Stephanie, thanks

[yoni162]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the tips. Jimmy I'll try what you said with Avis.

[yoni162]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

Toulouse is a good shout if you want a round trip & drop the car back where you collected it from.

Yeah that's why it made sense to book from there instead of planning one way flights & rentals.

Carbon Sasquatch said:

As for other tips - Andorra - make sure you arrive with an empty fuel tank as fuel is cheap - as are cigarettes & alcohol.

Will keep that in mind

Whoozit said:

It all depends where exactly you want to spend time. It's not a straight line route, getting around the mountains could involve a 100km+ north-south transit each time, at average speeds of 50-60kph. Better to plot out where you want to go, then connect the dots with the maximum number of M/N/A roads. The A roads aren't all that fast.

If you're hell bent on hiring a good car, then you're stuck with major airports. Alternative would be to drive down, or take the 24 hour ferry to Bilbao, then you're at leisure in your own car.

I spent several years around the Spanish side so ask away.

The route is sort of a zig-zagging across the border, starting from San Sebastian & finishing near Masella (trying to upload a picture), although after the comments here we might make it a bit more east. Of course starting from & ending at Toulouse AP. At least that was the original plan.
The route comes out at ~1,600 KM for which I've allocated 6 full days (not incl. flight days), so that's ~270 KM/day (5-6 driving hrs.).
That's until we saw the available car selection at Toulouse AP which made us think about changing course (and airports), but it complicates things logistically.
Still looking around for alternative places to hire (interesting) cars in Toulouse. Anyone have experience with roadstr.fr?

[yoni162]

OK, just checked this option. Interestingly the costs are similar (Spain rental is cheaper), but seems the one-way rentals prevents hiring some specific cars & limits the selection, which pretty much makes the added logistic hassle not that much worth it.
I did look at a Barcelona round trip - the pro is a (much) better car selection, con is a limited route since we'll need to come back to Barcelona AP (won't reach San Sebastian or even close to it).
We'll need to think about it. Really appreciate all the tips guys.

[yoni162]

Any opinion on whether it's better to drive the Pyrenees westward or eastward?

[yoni162]

Planning to land in Barcelona. Honestly the car rental situation is horrible now, prices are insane.

[yoni162]

Just checked, that is pretty much my route (not sure if by chance of if this recommendation was already somewhere). Thanks!

[yoni162]

Just updating after the trip..again thanks for all the comments and tips. The route was basically Barcelona->San Sebastian while across the Pyrenees. The route taken was somewhat of a criss-cross of the Spanish-French border, mainly taken from some motorcycle trip website I can't remember at the moment..and of course some of the suggestions here. Amazing roads. Weather was nearly perfect, very little traffic most of the time.
The way back was along the N-240 and N-260, which are a great way to get back to Barcelona if you're not in a hurry. Great roads that offer a bit (or a lot) of everything.

Edit: found the link - https://motorcycle-diaries.com/en/trips/pyrenees-b...

Edited by yoni162 on Friday 24th June 13:55