This week’s dream: Exploring untamed France in a classic Citroën
The Cévennes captured my imagination before I’d ever set foot in that corner of France’s south-central highlands, said David McAninch in The New York Times. “One of the wildest and most sparsely populated parts of the country,” the ancient mountain range with its 5,000-foot peaks and deep river gorges seemed like the perfect place to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine: making a road trip through rural France in a vintage Citroën 2CV. My wife, fortunately, was willing, and when I discovered Drivy.com, a site that’s like Airbnb for cars, I quickly located an owner in Lyon willing to rent us his 1976 2CV for $70 a day.
The first day didn’t go well. It “rained ropes,” as the French say, and our mintgreen Deux Chevaux lacked a defogger or any wiper speed beyond medium-slow. But when we woke to clear skies the next morning near the village of Anduze, the wheezed but mostly carried on. And when we passed a matching mint-green Citroën, its passengers smiled and waved wildly, just as we did.
On the morning of our final day on the road, the car simply wouldn’t start. Because it was Sunday, and we had a flight to catch, we quickly exhausted all other options and had to leave the car outside our hotel. We made it to Paris in time for dinner and wine at a bistro in the 10th Arrondissement, and the car’s owner was not upset. The repair turned out to be routine, and we had parted ways with the car in a beautiful spot, a riverside village called Sainte Enimie. It sits at the end of a cave-pocked river canyon favored by motorcyclists, and just past the “beautifully bleak” uplands of the Causse Méjean.
On Drivy.com, owners offer cars for rent starting at $30 a day.