Very interesting, your last para, that is the region we are perhaps most interested in, as we have been to Barcelona numerous times and it is amazing AND we like the skiing in the Pyranees too. We will be skiing there in about 1 month. Would you mind if we dropped into say 'Hello' and have a look around the area perhaps? let me know.
Me too / us too. I think we are up for moving too ... Nous? defo further south! Aude perhaps?
A lovely story Karim & I think thereâs a touch of serendipity in there. I hope youâll be fery happy. We are but getting it wrong the first time meant it was a costly business. We love our life here now. Itâs each to his and her own!
Dear Hilary,
I'd get a cup of tea for this one. (I've just read back - make it a pot!)
I had been traveling the world for 3 years so had been overawed by so many landscapes and cultures. Family illness brought me back to Europe and I decided to buy in France so that despite still traveling the world I would be back and within easy reach of London if need be and my many European friends. I was always thinking 'south west' but France is a big country so there's a lot of 'south west'! At first I thought 'within an hour of Toulouse' - there's a lot of that too.There was also in the mix the fact that I had been storing furniture in London at a cost of ÂŁ2000pcm so I figured that if I bought a house with low running costs I'd be quids in every year. I also didn't want to spend more than 100k on everything - including the car and insurances etc as I still have places in the world left to see.
I knew that I wouldn't be making any weekend trips to London or anywhere else they were likely to be at least month trips if not 6 month ones. So transport needs were slightly unusual.
First trip over for 10 days and I rented a car. I saw a lovely farm house by a tiny river - it looked wonderful from the pictures and the outside was great and the garden huge but inside it was a bit of a let down. The owner confessed that as they were at the bottom of the hill the river does flood 'occasionally'. Also despite my initial wants it was further from Toulouse than I wanted. Another visit was cancelled as the English owner couldn't get back to show me. I decided to go there anyway and see the village. From the outside a great house with a bit of potential but in a tiny village that appeared to have no people in it and no shops at all! On the way there I passed a little cottage with a hand written 'a vendre' sign and a man mowing the extensive lawn. I pulled in to say hello and look at the house. It was a dream, shabby but habitable with 5000m3 of land and 2 barns! I took loads of pictures and his phone number. However my elation started to expire as I realised how far it was to any shops. I was looking for a 'getaway' not 'total isolation'. It was 20 minutes to the nearest village with one shop in it. Still I ummed and ahh'd a lot.
Now another thing that I noticed was how quiet a lot of these villages are and sometimes I turn the music up and I'm a singer too! I wondered how pleased these places might be if I turned up making a racket!
So back in London I rationalised what I had seen and what I really needed rather than wanted. A huge garden that takes all that maintenance? No. To be secluded in some little backwater with no one in sight? No. To be walking distance to a shop with basics? Yes. To amoungst a small small community as I am on my own? Yes. Do I still want a quirky building. Yes. Somewhere I can make a noise. BIG YES. I knew that France has such an array of houses I was going to find the house and that would choose the exact area for me.
It's a tough ask to understand how living in a new country will be for you. In my traveling, living out of a backpack for 3 years I found that there are many things I didn't need. People weren't one of them. The community feeling of travelers was amazing and I want my little community even if it turns out to be just a handful of people.
In brief (at last!) the second trip I saw 'the school' = too remote, expensive tax fonciere, too much work. 'The house with a lake' = house tiny, lake needed maintenance, expensive for size. 'The chape|' = in worse repair than the pictures showed, started to subside. 'The winery' = now this one was amazing, so tempting. Huge place with 4 meter high wooden doors and 4m high concrete vats, ready made rooms almost! It was so quirky - really what I was looking for. Price good but renovation costs in a foreign country? I wondered if I could just throw in a bathroom and a kitchen of sorts and camp! I was only planning to be in France for summer anyway.
I went back to see that cottage - there's something about big French barns! The for sale sign had gone. I texted the owner he said it had sold. I now regretted needing bread and milk within arms reach. I also saw a very nice house outside Albi, north of Toulouse. Now this was a very authentic well maintained house, at a stretch you could just see the river and it was on a quiet dead end street. You could practically just move in - it was a safe bet. Only downsides were 120 mins from Toulouse, no shops nearby and no mobile phone reception. I was very tempted.
Back to London and by this time it was I was getting a little frustrated. I knew that without choosing a smaller area to search first I had made life very difficult. But up for the challenge all the same. Luckily I love driving as my road trips across the States, Canada and Australia attested to.
I had trawled leboncoin day and night and had seen houses come and go quickly and others that never moved. I realised that I had to be there to snap up a my quirky dream home. So before leaving for my 3rd trip I bought a French car and I planned to be in France for 6 weeks. I also bought a tent. I made some appointments and off I went both hopeful and mindful that August, the month that things in Europe slow down or stop completely, was nearly upon us.
Briefly (again? the last one wasn't) many disappointments, in fact one house that I really wanted to see had a very intransigent estate agent attached to it. It was cheap but needed work, how much money did I have for the work he wanted to know. he didn't think I had enough. I wasn't going to do it all at once, which is most often the way things work in France so I believe. Can I see it to assess the work - no!
So generally crestfallen I went back to see the winery to try to estimate costs as well as I could. It was on the outskirts of nice little village surrounded by vineyards. My biggest problem with anything like that is that I'm a designer. I used to work in Knightsbridge with particularly well heeled clients. I was allowed to have big ideas as they could afford them whereas I couldn't, or at least in France property development is a very different fish than in London. So trying to resist the urge to take that entire wall down and put in huge glass doors and take half the roof off to make a terrace and have an indoor swimming pool (in my defence there was easily space). I spoke in length to the owner and decided that it was doable despite the enormous size. I held my normally impulsive self back and told the owner that I would call him on Monday evening. I had one more property to see on Monday afternoon.
So I foresaw a leisurely Sunday in the campground the following day. I was a little relieved as I thought that I had made my mind up. However Sunday morning when I turn my phone on there is an email from an estate agent, it's their circular with new properties. There is one that looks amazing, an old mill by a river with a huge living room. It looks habitable, in a village with a bar! As it's Sunday I can't get hold of the agent so I write an email and say that I'm en route to that village to check it out and I'd like an appointment as soon as possible as it seems exactly what I want. While driving the agent calls to say that he's still at the property and he'll wait for me! The funny thing is, on my second visit to over, I was driving through a village and everyone had little stalls outside their houses selling bric a brac. So I stopped and walked around, I walked over the bridge and looked down at the beautiful old house by the river and thought 'if only...'. It turns out that the house I was viewing was the one behind it! On top of that there is a waterfall visible just upriver and a Cathar castle on the mountain above that at night is superbly lit in blue and white.
I bought it within 5 minutes of setting foot in the door. The garden is small but bigger than I was told and needs some work, which is my next job, as it slopes steeply down to the river, so I need to find someone to put in decking or terraces. Also there is a downstairs that is as big as the upstairs that I didn't get to see until I broke the door down but that's a whole other project for the future. There's a local shop (only open mornings), a post office, a bar and a restaurant (seasonal). My Italian 90 year old neighbour is wonderful and although there are plenty of people about I can make as much noise as I like! When I got back to the UK I had a text from the guy selling the cottage saying that the buyer was having trouble getting a mortgage and so it was available again.
So the region I fell into is 20 minutes from Quillan. It is in the foothills of the Pyrenees so ski stations are 40 mins away. Perpignan and beaches 50 mins, Barcelona within driving distance too. The scenery here is spectacular, mountains, gorges, vineyards not too far. In 20 mins you can get to bigger supermarkets, builders merchants, banks, a train station. There are buses to Carcassonne and Perpignan for 1 euro. Being slightly up a mountain it is cooler here than at sea level but so far always warmer than the UK. It doesn't really matter as it's only somewhere to store my furniture!
We went to the Var first, mainly because my daughter-in-law is from Nice and they planned to move to France before the children started school. It didnât work out so they are happily settled in the Uk wlike we had made the move. We think itâs overrated. Yes, the sun shines a lot but it is Petit England, very expensive, poor quality housing unless you are super rich and summer is just impossible if you live in the pretty villages. We looked elsewhere almost from the moment we got there and it came down to the west and finding the right area/property. We love our new home in the Lot-et-Garonne and have to admit that I love the similarities to my West Country roots in the UK. People are friendly, life is cheaper and we seem to have a more French lifestyle. I love the weather & its variety and feel safe here.
My French husband and I lived in London and when we retired we moved to Theoule on the Riviera near Cannes, basically because we had relatives there. I speak fluent French so language was not a problem, but never felt at home there. Basically I was neither Russian, middle eastern, rich, thin or pretty ! After nearly three years we sold and moved to the Bassin d'Arcachon in 33. We have restored a house in a little village called Taussat les Bains and could not be happier. The beach is three minutes walk from the house. We have made many French friends (there appear to be very few Brits here). Bordeaux and its airport are 40 mins away and my husband keeps his plane at Andernos Airclub. Spring, and Autumn are mild, summer hot and winter is a bit like the UK, but certainly not cold. Recommend this area highly.
The Charente (as opposed to Charente-maritime) has a micro climate; we have managed to have lunch outside several times in December and January with temperatures reaching 18 Celsius. No snow at all this year and the scenery and the lakes are a joy to behold. There are plenty of activties for young and old with public fishing lakes, swimming lakes, watersport lakes, all with sandy beaches and some form of cafeteria or restaurant nearby. There is one incredible adventure park for children and agile adults all based on treehouses, ladders and ropes among the forest setting. There are Chateaux, most open to the public - at least the larger ones, just to mention: Rochechouart and Rochefoucauld, prehistoric caves and roman ruins and so many teeny glorious churches dating back centuries packed with murals and very old statues. On the culture front, Angouleme attracts a lot of music concerts, groups, from rock to opera. Near enough to Limoges airport, we piggy-back on the Dordogne sights as well. There are not too many Brits and, it is very, very rural with farmland stretching for miles with sunflowers in the summer sun and a lot of tree plantations, forests, bicycle paths and loads of walks. Art galleries are everywhere and there are many sports associations to join. Most libraries have a smattering of English books to enjoy and many offer French lessons. Our French neighbours are wonderful and have given us a lot of help and support since we arrived. For us finding Charente was a pure accident as we were looking for a base to rent from which to house-hunt in SW France, but once here and having visited properties in other adjoining regions we decided to look only here. Fortunately, it looks as if we have found our dream home at last and hope to be moving 3k. away from where we are now based. We understand that local schools are really good with small classes and many activities in the summer holidays (that foreign visiting children may join). Taking into consideration the prices of tax here (very low), the wonderful choice of restaurants from basic up to Michelin - and the small banks that are so helpful.
We have known France for years, as I worked between the Hague and Paris for 15 years I had the opportunity to discover many wonderful places. It all depends what you are looking for. The airport is 45 minutes from the centre of Charente and there are two more close by. Trains arrive at small towns nearby with connections all over France. There are fewer golf clubs (although the ones that exist are good) squash about 30 minutes away from the centre. A working knowledge of French is slightly important as hardly anyone speaks (or says they do) English. Property prices are among the lowest in France too.
If you like extremes of temperatures, my friend in the Auvergne thinks she is in 7th heaven with hot summers and plenty of snow in winter (and the volcanos and better scenery than here, even I will admit that), but any and all brits there are pretty thin on the ground.
Good luck with research.
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We went in for 'compromise', somewhere between the UK and Switzerland because we did not want to live in either. Our ideal, but not fitting that criterion, would have been the south of Portugal where we spent a year and were probably about as totally comfortable as we have ever been. We needed airports, I was still travelling a lot, so we looked at the Gironde around St Emilion first but found it cheaper as we moved further inland. Bergerac airport made a decent place to get to and from so I looked in a circle around there. I was a bit sniffy about Dordogneshire, but now, for all its pitfalls, we are happy to be here. We have got used to where we are so it has lost much of its mystique, however we visited people near you yesterday, in the Pressignac - St Marcel area, and were seeing just how pristine it is there. This is the second most environmentally clean and well kept department in France which suits too although we are not raving greens.
There is lots wrong, except for the two big shopping zones, Bergerac is disappointing. PĂ©rigueux is OK though and in fact takes us only ten to fifteen minutes longer to get there. It is also subjective. If it is weather, then be in the south near the Mediterranean, mountain sports the Alps or Pyrenees and so forth. Some cities are better than others so better to be near rather than in, for those who want to live in them then by taste and choice them same I suppose. There is no perfect solution. We have seen how people have left France to go elsewhere, including some French folk who tried Italy, who came back with regrets. There is no real answer in all probability.
We had a holiday home for 10 years in the north in St Valery Sur Somme. It was great when the kids were young. Off the ferry in Boulogne(in those days) and within an hour we were lighting the fire. We went up to 6 times a year; the kids made friends with local kids, slept over, rode their bikes etc., but as they got older we decided that we'd like to buy a house more southerly, and warmer. We put our house up for sale thinking it'd take a couple of years but it sold in 3 weeks! Panic....what do we do now?
A few weeks later, a friend of ours who, incidentally, bought a house in the Vienne after spending a few days at St Val, was going down for a few days to do some work on his house and asked if I'd like to accompany him for the ride. I did, and we had a couple of days free and I decided to look around. Stella and I had already written a Yes's and No's list. I looked at about 4 houses, saw one that fitted the bill and video'd it. I then went back to Leeds, showed my wife the video and we decided to make an offer. It was accepted and the first time we looked at it together was the night before we signed! (after we'd signed, we did some shopping and set off back to our new home....couldn't find it! It took us an extra 10 minutes to do so!)
We've had the house for 21 years now and have lived here permanently for 10. It's changed around us quite a lot it in that 21 years... There were only an odd Brit then but now there are lots. The area might not be the most mouth dropping scenery but it suits us. We've got plenty of space and now the girls arrive every year with their kids. We've got plenty of French and British friends and we are very contented. I feel the stress easing away as we drive up to our "God's Little Acre" after coming home from a visit to the madness of Leeds!....."Je ne regrette rien" as Edith would say.
Try the Lot amazing place unspoilt
Having been visiting various places, on holiday, all over France for years, we quite liked Dordogne, but continued to holiday further south west towards the Spanish border, but eventually holidayed a bit more towards Italy, and then back a little, and found that Provence (the Bouches-du-Rhones) was the place for us, as we absolutely loved Aix-en-Provence and wanted to have a place not too far from this beautiful place! With the Marignane Airport (Marseille) only 1H25min from London, and importantly only 35min away or the TGV in Aix 35min away/TGV Avignon 45min away from our house and apartment, we had finally found 'our area'! We had initially bought a 2-bed apartment off plan in 2007, which we today rent out in the summer season+ www.aixpontroyal.com and my hubby admitted last year, that he had hoped that I, after us having bought the apartment (moved in 2009), would have forgotten all about my B&B dream...he was sooo wrong...as here we are! Eventually we had looked at loads of places and in September 2013 found a beautiful 18th century house in a village just on the edge of the Luberon (we have see the mountains from our house & apartment + here also the Alpilles mountains) where we, or should I say I run a small B&B, as hubby is still working (to keep me in the lifestyle I have become accustomed to, he says) www.lepetitfiguier.com . Not being far away from beautiful Aix-en-Provence, our village is part of the Aix summer music festival, and the big park at Chateau de Florans (3-4min walk from our house) is every year in July and August host to our famous international music festival www.festival-piano.com seating c 2.200 people. On the edge of our village we also have the famous Silvacane Abbey (one of the 3 sisters in Provence - the other 2 being Senanque Abbey in Vaucluse and the Thoronet Abbey in the Var - if you are interested Google '3 sisters in Provence' and go into www.avignon-et-provence.com great website here for the 3 abbeys) on the edge of our village, which is also part of the music festival and lots of more music and art exhibitions thoughout the year. Lots of wonderful walks here...and the markets are just some of the best. I personally just love driving though the never ending beautiful landscapes here. There's sooo much to do in this area, but a car is always needed to make the most of this beautiful area and it's great venues!
Our village is pretty much quiet most of the year, but Aix is not far away and is rarely quiet. Lourmarin, Cucuron, Bonnieux and many more are only a short drive away, all filled with wonderful markets, cafes and restaurants.
So can happily recommend our area, and should any of you have any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer these + I have some good contacts too.
Good luck with whatever makes you happy and contented... :)
Try the Poitou Charentes ... Not to north but enough south, we are in Bagnault.