The Trip - Day 1

We had to catch our flight from London Luton Airport and the flight departed at 06:25 (the joys of budget airlines).  So we decided to stay in a hotel by the airport the night before and get a taxi in.  We found a good deal to stay a the travelodge.  It turns out that you get what you pay for and this wouldn't be the last time that we would find this out over the next few days.

The room was very basic, no telephone, no remote for the television, which would not have been so bad if all the buttons on the set itself actually worked.  It even came complete with a semi conscious drunk in the foyer.  The only plus was that it was relatively clean.

At 04:30 we got a taxi to the airport and checked in for our flight.  The kids were fantastic considering that they were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night.  I wasn't too bad either!  Now the flight itself was... well.. you get what you pay for (lesson No. 2).  The plane was cheap, the food and drinks were not and they tried to sell you everything under the sun including the sun (but only the newspaper).  They also sold Hello magazines and scratch cards, cigarettes to phone cards.  In fact every 5 minutes they would make and announcement and parade a "must have" product down the isle.  In what must have been the most unwanted lineup of a fashion runway ever.  Still we came away without buying anything and only paying £6.00 each.

We arrived in a windy but quite warm Nimes around 09:30 and we were all doing quite well as the kids got a good sleep on the plane.  We collected our car after shelling out a 400euro deposit (which would take 10 working days to return after the hire) and headed down to Montpellier.  After we were on the road, it was straight forward getting down there as the roads were good and clear.  Getting around the old city of Montpellier wasn't quite so easy.  I was still a little nervous driving in France, especially in a city and it didn't help that I was in someone else's car.

We finally found a somewhat premium priced car park (although it was not that different to most city car parks) and we went exploring.  By this time it was getting towards noon and it was getting hot.  There we are mostly in winter clothes as this was all we had out of storage and we were feeling it.  We were looking in the shops for flip flops or sandals and some summer clothes but there was nothing.  Only winter coats and cold weather gear.


Now I have to say that I fell a little bit in love with Montpellier.  It is a wonderful city which is beautifully diverse, vibrant and buzzing community.  It is also very beautiful across both the old and new parts of the city, giving a real contrast.  This love however, did dissipate very quickly.  I would like to say that it was because the place stank or was really dirty, maybe even because of the abundance of criminals or tax officials.  But I can't because the truth is the simple fact that we could not afford to live there. Absolute bastards!

So we went to find our "Montpellier" hotel.  Armed with a road map (of the whole of France), and area name and a lot of hope and optimism we set off  What followed was a lot of heat, not a clue about where we were heading and even less patience from me.  However, we made it to our functional, clean and cheap hotel.  You get what you pay for (lesson No. 3).  Although the room was clean, there was still a feeling that you didnt actually want to touch anything. We found a bakery nearby where we got a pizza for dinner and a French stick which was made with wine, which we had for breakfast, afterall we were in France.

And so ended our brief if not emotional fling with Montpellier.

An update... Part One...

I must start this entry with an apology.  As you know, there has not been a update on this blog for some time now as for a while nothing happened and then all of a sudden too much happened which meant that there wasn't enough time to update.  So I will try my very best to update you with everything that has happened over the past few months.

Laura went to a French Property Show in London which initially looked like it was going to be really good.  However, after a long and hard journey getting there it turned out to be a little disappointing.  She did manage to find out some good information and get some contact about finances and legal issues.  But it was more about buying a property rather than renting one which is more what we are after right now.

Around the same time I found a good website which has long term rentals (http://www.immostreet.com/).  This became a really useful website as most of the other websites generally give you winter rentals, or rentals where the cost increases over the summer.

So after searching through the website we were able to narrow down a selection of properties which we wanted to have a look at.  All we had to do now was to take a trip over to France.  We started to look at different flights and trains, Hotels and B&B's.  Trying to cut the costs down and keep it to a reasonable price.  As you can imagine it is very easy to get a little carried away and before you know it the price is sky high.  I managed to get a good deal on the car hire with Europcar, which was harder than I thought it would be.  For a start some car hire companies charge over £50.00 to hire a single child seat which was something that we needed two of!

For the flights we ended up using Ryanair as they are by far the cheapest option.  The only problem is the amount of hoops that you have to jump through.  For example; if you want to take luggage you have to pay extra.  If you want to reserve a seat, you have to pay extra.  If you want to pay by any other means than prepaid Mastercard, you have to pay extra.  However, we did manage to get the flights for a very reasonable £6.00 per person/each way.  So all in all we paid just £76.00 for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 infant for return flight from London to the south of France (infants have a flat rate of £20 each way).

So flights booked, car booked and we had also booked into a Première Classe hotel in Montpellier for the first night. 

We are ready to go!

Area Guide - Part One Languedoc-Roussillon

So the region that we are looking to move to is in the South of France on the Mediterranean coastline and it also boarders with Spain.  The area is made up of some fantastic towns and cities including Montpellier, Béziers, Perpignan, Narbonne and Carcassonne.

One big plus is that there is a great love of rugby in this region with Perpignan and Montpellier in the Top 14 and major clubs also in Béziers and Narbonne.  There is also one of the finest clubs around with Toulouse not too far away.

One love for both Laura and I is wine, which this region has in abundance.  For years the wine makers of this region concentrated on quantity rather than quality leading to the region being referred to as the wine lake.  However, in recent years the vineyards of this area have been producing some fine wines.  So some fine wines for Laura and I to enjoy and some cheap plonk for the visitors to have!  (only joking!!)

Another love that we both share is of food and not only do they have wonderful food in France but they also have a wonderfully relax and enjoyable approach to eating.  The main ingredients in Languedoc Roussillon cuisine are olive oil and tomatoes, garlic, onions and aromatic herbs are also used. The only difference may be that cooks use a little bit less garlic than in Provence. Sea food products are an essential part of the regions cuisine.  Amoungst the favoured dishes include Oysters, Gardiane (bull stew with rice), Bourride (fish with aïoli), Morue Catalane (cod with tomatoes and pepper), Anchoïade (anchovies with garlic and olive oil) and Crème Catalane (cream with lemon, vanilla and fennel seed).

There are also a number of wonderful cheeses from this region including the famous Roquefort.

For those of you who enjoy their history, the area has a great variety to be enjoyed from Carcassonne which is a restored medieval Cité and Roman cities of Nîmes and Narbonne.  To Montpellier, which has the world's oldest continuously operating university.
 Now we all know that the sun makes us happier and the sun is something that this region has in good supply.  In fact, the region also gets an average of 2,506 hours or 320 days of sunshine per year.  Maybe even I can lose my moonlight tan!
The temperatures aren't too bad either, with the graph below showing the average, maximum and minimum temperatures.

Have you been to this region?  Do you have anything to add or any tales of your adventures or even just a comment?  Please leave it below!!

Only 4 days left...

That's right, there is only 4 days left to vote in the current poll about where in Europe you would like to live. As it stands the result will be the following;

France 7

Spain 6

United Kingdom 2

Other 1

Only you have the chance to change this, so if you think differently to the above please let us know.

The search begins...

So over the past week or so we have been looking at different properties to both rent and also buy. This way we get to know what we are looking for now and in the future. It has been an interesting time as some of the properties that we have seen, both online and in magazines, have ranged from just bare walls to fully renovated beautiful homes.

What are you looking for, I hear you cry out loud!? As I said in the last post, we want a place to rent for a year. As long as the house has plenty of room for us and also our friends to visit then that is great. This will give us the chance to look around for a long term property.

Well when we buy we would like an old house, something with a bit of character; we have seen plenty! We would also like somewhere that needs some TLC. Nothing too crazy. Somewhere that has space for us to live while other parts of the house are updated/repaired. This way we can make the house truly our family home.

I would like to thank everyone for their messages of encouragement, we all really appreciate it! Please feel free to make comments and also don't forget to look at the poll.

Adam

Every adventure has a start...

We are at the start of a new chapter in our lives. As a family we have lived in both Canada and England and now we are looking to move again. It isn't because we have been unhappy in any one place, in fact there are parts of our lives in both Canada and England that have been great and we have had some wonderful times in both places. However, since I work at sea, it means that we can live anywhere we like. We firmly believe that we can enhance the lives of everyone in the family if we experience different cultures.

Since Laura is fluent in French and there are also a number of airlines (including the budget ones!) who fly between Scotland (where I work every other 3 weeks) and France we have decided that this would be a great place to start looking. We are thinking towards the south, probably South-East. The likely area is a triangle between Toulouse, Perpignan and Montpellier. This is a large area, but we are keen to make sure that we find the right place and right area.

At the moment we want to move over and rent for about one year so that we know that we are going to the right place and that the whole family settle in. This will also give us the chance to get all our french bank credit sorted out.

As with any big move like this, we are looking into it with great detail and believe me, there is a hugh amount of difference between the two countries even though we are both part of the EU. Renting, mortgages, healthcare, utilities, general living all seem to have a slightly different twist to the way it is done here in England so there is a lot of research to be done. The more we read and learn about France, the more excited we are to experience the culture. We will keep you posted as we go along!

Adam.