I'll be in the South of France towards the end of July (for the Tour de France) and need to rent a car from Sunday (22nd) through the 28th. But dang, it's almost impossible to rent a car on a Sunday. Actually, in Tarbes, it appears it just can't be done, despite that Europcar's website says you can, with "extra charges." I tried... it lets you reserve the car on their website, even pre-pay for it. And then a day later I get an email from them saying you can't rent a car in Tarbes on Sunday.

I replied to the email, asking where I could rent a car on that particular Sunday, but haven't seen a reply yet.

I can rent on Monday morning, but that's pushing things pretty tight, since we need to car to make it close to one of the race stages that day, and I'd like to get things settled in the day before.

Alternatively, it appears I can rent a car at the Pau airport rental facility, but there's no easy way to get there... although, since we'll have bikes, we just might end up riding from Tarbes to Pau. Not the most-scenic of routes, but we just might have no other choice.

Any other ideas? Car rental companies that might not be so obvious? Give up and plan to go to Pau?

Thanks-