There was some comentary on this subject a few months ago. Here’s an update.

It’s expensive and you want to be sure not to go over 24 hours if you’re going to spend a day touring the battle fields. We arrived Bayeux about 2:30 and went to our B&B. We stayed at B&B Aggarthi, and the proprietor had her daughter drive us out to the Hertz place around 5:30.

First the exact location. If you go into Google maps with Bayeux , France and look at he west side of the city, you’ll see a big taffic circle, Rond Point de Vauxcelles. Roughly a hundred yards west is the Total station that is the local agent for Hertz. They’re very nice people, but you can’t count on someone there speaking fluent English. Fortunately I’m OK with survival level French. If you don’t know any French at all, I’d say rent a car in Cannes. You’re more likely to find someone who speaks English in the larger twon.

We had reserved a class C car, but they gave us a class D. Get the smaller car if you can. When you’re going down the main road in some of those small towns, you’ll feel like it’s 1 ½ lanes wide. We did a lot of slow movement meeting cars inn the opposite direction – wish I’d had the compact. If you can’t drive a stick shift, you’re at a real cost disadvantage because that leads you to class E or higher – adds at least a third to the bill.

You may notice on driving out that the car is noisier than you expect. It’s likely to be a diesel.

BTW, taxis in Bayeux are not cheap, but they are not unreasonable for the distance as compared with New York or Boston.