nimjacole

Hi all,

I am new here and would firstly like to say what a great site, very informative indeed!

Secondly, me and my family would like to relocate, we have travelled extensively through Europe in the last 7 years now (Portugal, Romania, Greece & Italy) and have loved every bit of our travels but along the way our family has expanded and my eldest now 7 really needs some stability we are looking at the South somewhere and wondered if anyone has any idea of firstly any B&Bs in the Arthez de Bearn area. We have travelled around the Pyrenees Atlantique but have never stopped of anywhere and wondered what others think about the area? AND the weather of course in Winter!! We love the idea of Spain in 20 mins and Skiing an 1 hour away!!!

Andrea50

Hiya

When we moved to France 4 years ago, we did travel extensively around this area, and we stayed in a Balladines hotel on the outskirts of Pau and it was great value and really nice. Pau is a lovely city, and has cheap flights to UK with Ryanair. The pyrenees are stunning, but I would suspect most people would be better living somewhere you have a panoramic view OF them but not living actually IN them. Ka Ora on here knows the Pyrenees really well and will probably be giving you some of his valuable advice at some point.

Biarritz also has cheap flights and is very cosmopolitan but was too glitzy for me - I'm a "country girl". You will find certain areas on the outskirts of Pau but within reasonable distance very nice, such as Oloron, Gan, Nay, etc. Lourdes to me was rather overated and felt a bit run down, but could have changed in the last 5 years or so.

Also, further up there is Orthez, and parts of the southern Gers are lovely - nice rolling countryside with quite a few properties with great views of the Pyrenees. The Landes area was a bit too flat for us personally, but the area around Dax is quite nice.

If you want Brits around, Lasseube has a large contingent of them.

Further east, and South of Pau, is Laruns, really beautiful, and on the road to Spain. But winters here can be harsh and be aware you could be quite cut off at some points in the season.

We also looked at St Jean de Port - lovely place, but the property was dear.

Good luck, and you will love the area.

Andy

Ka Ora!

It's nice we are in Ariege, every thing is pretty much perfect distance from us with the exception of civilisation. Pick carefully, in the country a lot of disputes occur even between the French. Living above 600 Meters can be very hard work in the winter The summers are very nice green and hot. Do a lot of research before you commit to something. If you have seen it when its hot and sunny take a look when it's raining, because it's amazing how much a community can change with a bit of rain and how drab it can look.

Don't get me wrong I love it here, But from the outset I wish that I had paid a little more attention and not got caught up in just the summer time beauty. We would of saved a few bob in the long term and avoided a hospital trip or two.

nimjacole

Thanks for your replies, much appreciated. As have said before we have travelled quite a bit around that area (in our little camper van before the kids! through to Italy) and I probably would never do it again but what fun we had.

Anyway, I vaguely remember it being absolutely stunning and would like to have a look around really, you have given me some good starting points.

Also with my husband's job we have been lucky and they will pay for the girls to attend International Schools which takes the pressure off somewhat, but we are quite happy for the girls to start a French school but for now we have to be travelling distant Pau as I will have to get them to school every day so I dont want a long journey in the mornings.

It is interesting what you say about visiting places out of season we actually plan to do short visits indeed have planned some visits for end of September beginning of October as its cheap to fly then obvoiusly they go up during the half term quite considerably but we live near to Bristol so travelling from her to Pau is fantastic.

thanks again