With only a month before we leave France, we thought we should give a good heave to our search for another renovation project. We spent some days trolling through websites for properties in the foothills inland from Beziers and Montpellier. We feel this is one of the better areas for us, as the weather should still be lovely, it doesn't get as much wind as the plains in from Perpignan, it's close to the coast and so on. We'd also been looking forward to visiting our friends Andrew and Marijke who had moved to Montpellier.
We'd managed to find 4 houses online that we thought worth visiting, and rang or emailed the agents on the day before All Saints. All Saints is a major day in France. It is a public holiday, and many people use it to visit their relatives' graves. It is customary to place flowers on the graves, more often than not chrysanthemums - hence you don't give French people chrysanthemums as a gift at other times of year!. As a result the markets and florists are flooded with chrysanthemums. Contacting agents only the day before wasn't a great move, as we set off on the Thursday with no confirmed viewings.
We stopped at the first agent in Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude. Olivier turned out to be very pleasant, and was only too happy to drive to Bize-Minervois with us to show us a house on the road in. As always, we were looking for something approaching the French dream house - an old building with character features, a terrace and a little outdoor space for a table under a tree. The house Olivier showed us was OK, but rather poorly built. The floors were all up and down, and rather springy, which didn't bode well for making use of the attic space for another bedroom. I think we both knew it wasn't going to be right.
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| First house looks pretty good, but only from the outside |
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| Perhaps not so good further in |
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| Plus a fair amount of imagination needed! |
The towns we'd driven through on the way to Bize-Minervois were interesting. Some were dead as a doornail, tired and rather grim. Others seemed bright and alive, tidy and with cared-for buildings. The second agent, Christophe Hirsch, wasn't available until after lunch, so we had a chance to wander through Bize-Minervois and have lunch there. It was definitely on the "bright and alive" side of the ledger, though rather small. It is on the banks of the Cesse River, and on going through a stone gate into the town we noticed several plaques on the wall marking previous flood levels - at waist height! It is not a large town, having 2 restaurants/cafes, two bakeries, a medical centre and precious little else. Lunch was interesting - a big tray of 4 small courses all delivered at once.
The second house was certainly interesting. It stood opposite the old walled centre of the village on the other side of the Cesse, with lovely views to the river and town from the entry facade, and into the hills and its own small garden from the other face. It had probably once been a winegrower's house (this area is just full of them) and had traces of grandeur in the lovely stonework. The downstairs was a bit of a dog's breakfast in terms of layout, but was easily sorted as all internal walls could be removed. We could easily see how it could be transformed into a huge living-dining-kitchen room opening out onto the private garden. Next level up were four good big bedrooms, one bathroom and a potential shared sitting room, with two more small rooms for ensuites if desired. The attic was enormous, open and potentially superb. We could imagine opening part of the roof to make a huge private terrace facing south to the sun. The structure looked good and solid.
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| We rather like this house! |
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| Original features in the large garage |
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| A few walls to be knocked down and redecorated |
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| Nice staircase |
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| Amazing space in the attic. This is less than a third of it. |
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| Tree needs removal (room for a pool?) |
The house itself was pretty much all we could ask for. An excellent building to turn into a fabulous home with outdoor space, all relatively simple, and plenty we could do ourselves. The price seemed OK, and though there is a lot of work to be done and paid for, we imagine the end result would be financially viable. The decision is now ours. It is a very tough one. The more places we visit, the more we realise what Ceret has to offer. Its size is just right, there's always plenty going on, there's people about even in winter, and its transport links are excellent. However, there just are not any houses like the ones we've been looking at. Ceret's past history of being in a long fought-over border zone meant that its inhabitants built tight, fortified villages, and the generous "winegrower's houses" of the areas further north are not there. Lots to think about!
We'd had a call to say that the two houses we'd hoped to see the next day were unavailable. One because the owner was very ill, and the other because the owner was out of town, though why that should matter for an unoccupied house escapes us. We therefore headed into Beziers where we'd booked a very reasonable and very lovely studio apartment dead-centre. Cunningly we arrived at 5:01 when the parking became free, so we found a park and walked the 100m to our apartment. A great welcome, sweets, coffee and tea on tap, and a nice place to be in.
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| View from our Airbnb in Beziers |
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