bonchance

Where did you make 'home' in france and what made you decide to live there?

Le Chant

Pure luck! It was the first place we physically viewed in France. fell in love with it. The location was perfect, the aspect, the situation, the potential was there. And, at the time we moved (2005), the price was affordable.

We may be here a while, but we're already thinking of where we'd like to live next and this time we'd plan it with a little more 'care'! LOL!

beigey

we ended up coming back to the village DH grew up in ... there was a family property we could move into so we did. It was a sudden move over here from Dubai just at the start of the financial crisis ... we are self employed so didn't really matter where we were.

Been here 18months ... little one due any day now but we are already thinking 5 years down the line we would like to be somewhere else ... we found that living somewhere is obviously VERY different to visiting, even for extended trips so we'd take a few more things into consideration next time!

racaille

We were a bit boring and focused - no coup de coeur for us! Nearly nine years ago we were arriving with small children so we took into account dull things like schools and activities, proximity to airports/autoroutes/cities.

We knew our area very well beforehand. We picked it for sentimental ties, beauty and climate (can't be doing with rain). We did of course have a wobble when we fell heavily for a money pit - ravishing old house in poor repair - but thought it would be kinder for the kids to have a 'proper' home straight away, rather than live in a caravan/building plot for ages (we are slow builders). So we bought a very serviceable but uninteresting house, in a wonderful area that still satisfies everyone's requirements - a bus ride from Aix for the teenager to check out the boutiques (and for work), in the Luberon park for sheer scenic grandeur and our horses, an hour from the coast, a few hours from skiing, etc

The kids are growing up and will soon enough be flying the nest. I dream of a small old house with lots of land .... but only round the corner!

smithyandlisa

We came here for a holiday in September 2007 on the recommendation of a friend. It was our first trip to France other than a couple of weekends in Paris. After 2 weeks we were smiiten. Returned home, put the house on the market, gave up two really good jobs, and in February 2008 we were back for good. Found our dream home very quickly and moved in at the end of April '07. Love it more every day.

Matt_nolan

Definately the job, been posted here for 9 months...nearly half way through, picture post card France down here near Lyon; not exactly what a newly graduated trainee wants though!!!

Having a fantastic time, fantastic people and fantastic ambiance!

dennerlymum

hubby's job, simple as!

wetwang

Quite by accident.
Booked a weekend flight to Rodez thinking it was in Spain and ended up in the Dordogne. Liked it so much we returned to Bergerac for another weekend, got caught in a downpour outside an Immobiliers and pretended to be interested just to stay dry. 4 hours later verbally agreed to buy and 6 months later completed.
The day after completion my wife lost her job and with 2 mortgages and only 1 income it seemed more sensible to start a B&B in the new property rather than prostrate herself in vain job interviews in front of fresh faced kiddies playing at bigshot interviewers.

Zero planning, zero research,zero language skills but it has all panned out better than we could have hoped for.

jenny and charlie

Hi Smithyandlisa,

We are still here too and still loving it !
Our bungalow is near to being finished (only one big room left to decorate) the dogs are fit and well, we now have four lovely hens in a nice big fenced in run and so have fresh eggs every day. We never have a day that we regret taking "the leap". Glad to hear you are still around and happy
Jenny and Charlie.

Martin Parker

We chose the Hautes-Pyrenees dept to be near the mountains for snowboarding and walking. Unfortunately, we have done neither since moving here - been far too busy get a business off the ground trying to earn a living.

Gave up two good jobs to be here, but have no regrets.

Maybe next year we can start to enjoy the more relaxed life that we came here for.

kjs5

a friend was renovating a house in France we came over for a holiday and decided to move here, had always planned to retire aboard but didn't know where.

So glad we did it earlier our children were 2 and 5 and are now fluent and love french life.

Chris'nJulie

Wanted to flee the awful UK on retirement and go to Spain. Wife wasn't keen, so settled on France. Had a look around, liked the Midi Pyrenees, and also the Limousin. Had a friend of a friend in the Limousin, who was French and an estate agent. The Limousin was less expensive, and far less populated, the rest, as they say, is history. And here we are. Lovely!

Chris

kjs5

hi chris and julie

we are in the limousin 2 top of haute vienne close to the vienne border

check out a good website for the area called guide2limousin

Fizzlers

I'd been coming to the South of France on holiday since I was a young child, so when I met hubbie who already had a lovely house for us, we decided to use my earnings to buy a holiday home.

We came on holiday and searched for picturesque villages on hills & they had to have a cafe I felt comfortable in (with decent wc!). We came across our village in that holiday, saw our house for sale (it was a mess on the inside but had lovely stone exterior) & put in an offer...

We enjoyed lots of holidays & weekend breaks whilst we renovated the place until we decided to start a family & move here full time.

Loving it!

Fleurette

I applied for hotel jobs all over France and just went for it. Ended up spending 2.5 years In Nice (including 3 months at Univ de Savoie in the Alps).
It was more than difficult in the beginning. Went there alone with rubbish French and threw myself into a private owned French hotel with only French colleagues and a few snotty miserable Welsh stagiaires that I didnt get on with. Hated it until some new French stagiaires came and my French colleagues eventually decided that despite being English, I wasn't 'that bad' after all and decided that I was good enough to befriend. Am still good friends with them and in contact with them all, but I'd say it took about 6 months of crap to get to that level!
However, thanks to them and their absolute refusal to speak to me in English since day 1 (their actually words were something like 'no english here, you're in France, you only speak French!'), my French is very very good. Despite it being hard, the best thing is just to take a big gulp and throw yourself in the deep end! I later got a second job in a busy restaurant- wow, that was physically exhausting and yet another test. My colleagues were equally cold in the beginning making references about the Brits taking over etc, whenever I was around, but after screaming at them, they finally stopped and actually started being nice and inviting me out with them for after work drinks!

My favourite insult from French guy about being English: One day a colleague of mine was joking around and said 'oh, what do you know, you're only English!', he said it just as a French customer was about to check into the hotel, he overheard and said to me, 'that guy just called you English!', I replied, yes, because I am English... His face dropped about 10 feet before he mumbled, 'oh, never mind, thats your problem!'.