Very true. We are well fed and housed here in Avignon which, by all measures, is a nice town. It is crazy for a car not to have a spare tire. A couple of days ago, we were driving around some very remote Cathar villages south of Carcassonne. It would have been far more difficult if we had gotten stuck there.

Thanks. In theory, National/Atesa is supposed to send a tow truck for me tomorrow morning at 9. Hopefully this works! If not, I think I now know enough about the system to get a tire on a weekday. Oddly, it seems like you can't just get a guy to deliver a tire to your car. They want to tow the car to a garage. I think Atesa is prepaying for the tow, so whatever.

The French automobile club was mildly helpful -- they could have found me a tow and mechanic on Monday -- but it is definitely better to insist on your rental car company helping you. Interestingly, National France couldn't really do anything for me with a National Spain car. I don't know if Hertz and Avis are different. Definitely something to think about when crossing borders.

I'm guessing I'll be dealing with National and my Visa Signature coverage for weeks about the bills on this. A lot of trouble over a simple problem.