Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Moving to France, Provence
Discussed in this Episode
- Nice
- Seillans
- Fayence
- Montauroux
- Cabris
- Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne
- Spéracèdes
- Var
- Luberon
- Provence
- Arrière-pays
[00:00:00]
Episode Intro and Preview
Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 591, cinq cent quatre-vingt-dix (onze!!!).
Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today on the podcast: Buying a Home in France: Lessons from a Real-Life House Hunt in the Var
Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a conversation with Juliana and Craig Linssen about their plans to move to France and their love for the Var region. We discuss their experiences with French real estate, their reasons for choosing France, and their advice for others looking to make a similar move.
Podcast supporters
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If you’d like to support the podcast and skip the ads, you’ll find the link in the show notes, and all my tours and services are at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Magazine segment
Annie Sargent: For the Magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Juliana and Craig today, I’ll discuss renovations of the RER B line in Paris and revisiting Cathar Castles. Hmm.
If you’re in the mood for more episodes, you can browse all of the previous episodes at joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
And don’t forget to grab your free weekly recap of the best stories, tips, and hidden gems. Just sign up at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
[00:02:00]
Meet Juliana and Craig
Annie Sargent: Bonjour, Juliana and Craig Linssen, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Juliana Linssen: Bonjour.
Craig Linssen: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Annie Sargent: Wonderful to talk to you today. You have some big plans. You have big plans to hopefully move to France soon, and you have your heart set on the Var region, which is gorgeous, so I can’t blame you.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: So we’re going to talk about, a little bit at the beginning about your efforts to move to France, and then the Var region as well, and why you like it so much.
So why don’t you introduce yourselves a little bit and just tell me what your plans are?
Why France and the Var / Alpes-Maritimes
Juliana Linssen: So I’m Juliana Linssen. Craig’s my husband. We live in California in the Bay Area. We’ve been dreaming about moving to Europe for quite a while. Craig has lived in Europe when he was younger, and I’m from Brazil originally, but I do have an European passport, through my [00:03:00] grandparents.
So we’ve been talking about it and dreaming about it for a while. And then in doing research, we thought, for a while we were thinking about Portugal, but then Portugal started getting really expensive, with everybody wanting to move there.
And then we started doing some research in France and realized that it would be, you know, a place that we will probably enjoy because it has a lot of the things that we really love doing in one place. I’m an interior designer, so there’s definitely the aspect of, you know, design and architecture and art.
And then, we love skiing in the winter, we love hiking, and we love wine, and we also love going to the beach in the summer. So it seems like France has a little bit of everything that we love. Of course, the food as well, not to forget that.
So we started doing research and, you know, got to learn quite a bit about the real estate market there. Craig can continue talking about how that…
Craig Linssen: We kind of narrowed it down to the Nice area [00:04:00] because you know, Nice has a great climate, great beaches, and we just kind of started looking. As we started looking at the house prices, we realized that sort of the further you get from outside of Nice, the prices start going down, a little bit.
So we kind of started one town at a time, just looking at a map of Nice and then seeing the towns nearby and looking what the real estate market was like, until we kind of basically discovered the Var region, which was really quite a large area.
I was really surprised that it kind of goes, you know, including the coast of the Côte d’Azur, next to Cannes, almost all the way to Marseille, and then north, going up, all the way to the foothillsof the Alps.
So it’s really quite a big region. But the area we were focused on was more kind of inland, you know, within about an hour from Nice is what we were trying to sort of limit our search to, so that if we flew into Nice, we wouldn’t have a big, long drive to get to where we’re going once we land.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Learning French and Work Plans
Annie Sargent: So a couple of [00:05:00] questions. Do you, either one, speak French or are you learning French?
Juliana Linssen: We are both learning French. We are doing, you know, some audio books and things like that, but we also have a private teacher. Shout out to Yann. He is a great teacher, and we meet with him via Zoom once a week. He’s based out of Paris, and it’s been working out good. I mean, we’re still obviously in the kind of beginning stages, but we can already tell that we’re understanding a lot better, and hopefully if we keep going, you know, we’ll get there at some point.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. I think for you, Juliana, it might be easier because you already know Brazilian Portuguese. I don’t know how different Brazilian Portuguese is from Portuguese Portuguese, but, I mean, it’s a romance language. Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. It’s like British English to American English, basically. That’s the difference. You know, it’s the same language essentially. The Portuguese is a little bit more formal. There’s a lot of words that [00:06:00] are similar to Portuguese, but then there’s a lot of words that are similar to English too. So Craig is actually not having as, you know, such a hard time either, so.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, for people who are not seeing us, you’re both in your, what, early 40s?
Craig Linssen: Thank you.
Juliana Linssen: We wish. We’re in, going towards our mid-50s.
Craig Linssen: Early 50s.
Juliana Linssen: Early to mid-50s, yeah.
Annie Sargent: You hide it well.
Juliana Linssen: Thank you.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, you hide it well. So, are you hoping to retire before you come to France, or do you think you’ll continue working while you’re in France?
Craig Linssen: Probably continue working, hopefully. We’re not quite sure how that’s going to play out yet. But we’ll retire from our current jobs here most likely, unless I can get a job transfer over there with my current line of work. But yeah, so we would hope to… You know, we probably will work into our 60s.
Juliana Linssen: Mm. Hopefully.
Craig Linssen: Hopefully. But we want to… you know, we thought that buying this property would be a kind of a good transition, [00:07:00] both as an investment property and a foot in the door so that, you know, we can kind of start going more often, practicing our French. And then when we decide to make the leap within a couple of years, we’ll have a place there that we can just move right into.
Annie Sargent: Right.
Tech Ties and Visa Thoughts
Annie Sargent: So what sort of work do you do, Craig?
Craig Linssen: So I work for Apple.
Annie Sargent: Oh, yes. Yes, you had told me that when we first talked. I forgot.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: You work for Apple. Yeah, and so Apple, I mean, it’s an international company. They can probably…
Craig Linssen: Yeah, we do have an office in Paris, so there’d be the potential maybe to, you know, look for something out of the Paris office once my French gets to where it needs to be.
Annie Sargent: They used to have, Apple used to have an office in Sophia Antipolis, which is not very far, and that’s when I met them because when I… Back in a previous life when I was a technical translator, I worked for Novell at the time, and we met with our Apple kind of fellow [00:08:00] translators, and had kind of a workshop between translators to decide… This was so long ago that, both… I mean, Apple was pretty tiny back then. And we were mostly translating the operating system.
Craig Linssen: Oh…
Annie Sargent: Deciding, you know, what do we keep in English, what do we translate, what do you use for this sort of hardware, what do you use for that sort of hardware. It was doing a lot of lexicography back then, and we were trying to work with different companies to all agree. Like, how do we say this in French? If we could all agree… that’d make everybody’s life easier.
Anyway, they were lovely. The people, the translators at Apple were lovely. And they had quite the team.
Craig Linssen: That’s one of the neat things as well is that the Sophia Antipolis is almost like a little mini Silicon Valley close to Nice as well, right?
Annie Sargent: Yes, it is. It is.
Craig Linssen: An opportunity to potentially stay in tech if we go over there.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, having a house already is a foot in the door because you’d have your own address, clearly, [00:09:00] and then you’d have your bank account sorted. You might start working towards applying for the health coverage. It takes a few months to get that set up, but, you know, once you’re a resident, it’s a good way to do it.
Now, I’m going to be recording several episodes going forward about the different types of visas you can apply for to work, you know, perhaps as a freelancer or as an employee or… Because there, depending on what visa you apply for, it’s going to either lead you to a 10-year residency card or possibly towards French citizenship as well.
There are some types of visas that will never go there. If you’re coming to France as a tourist, and you just renew your tourist visa many times, it’s never going to lead you to a 10-year residency card, as far as I know. This is not what I do, as you know, but I’ve talked to some professionals who do this, and it seems to be the case that, anyway, it’s interesting.
The House They Almost Bought Immediately
Annie Sargent: I think from our first [00:10:00] conversation that you guys found a place that you almost bought immediately, right? You were gung ho. Tell me about that.
Craig Linssen: Yeah, it was interesting because when we started looking, I kind of started in the Cabris area, which is a little bit closer to Nice, and then there’s an area called Spéracèdes, Saint… How do you say it? St. Cézaire Sur…
St. Cézaire Sur Siagne
Annie Sargent: Okay, okay, okay. You’re going to have to spell that one.
Craig Linssen: Cézaire Sur Siagne.
Annie Sargent: Oh, I see it. I see. St. Cézaire Sur Siagne. Ooh, that’s a hard one to say. Yeah. Yeah. Sur Siagne. Siagne. Yeah, okay.
Craig Linssen: And, kind of looking at the map going west from there, we saw a property in Montauroux that we really liked, Fayence, and then finally, we kind of found the one in Seillans, which is one of [00:11:00] the plus beaux villages.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seillans.
No, it is one of the plus beau villages, and it’s really amazing. I mean, it’s a small little village, but it’s really beautiful, and Fayence is the larger village in that area. They call it Pays de Fayence, that region, there’s nine little villages right around Fayence that you can almost see, one from another, and they’re all the beautiful medieval like, perched villages.
Craig Linssen: This house that we found in Seillans, it had just an incredible view that was kind of the cover shot of the real estate ad, you could see Seillans, you could see Fayence, you could see even Bargemon in the distance, which is even a little bit further out, and just beautiful mountain views.
And, the house itself was really cute, lots of French charm.
Definitely sort of what we were kind of looking for. [00:12:00] And working with the real estate agent, we actually went ahead and put in an offer, she let us put in an offer remotely. We did a FaceTime viewing and really liked the property, in the FaceTime viewing.
And yeah, we just kind of dove right in and started going for it and went through the whole process. Unfortunately, when we got close to the… the closing kind of part of the project, we found out there were some foundation issues with the house that had not been disclosed completely up front, and it all kind of fell through, unfortunately. They were going to be very expensive repairs, and it was going to put the entire thing out of our budget, so.
Beware of Falling in Love with a House
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. This is, I think, something that people need to resist doing, is falling in love with a house, before you know if it’s really the sort of property that you should be investing in.
Because I mean, it’s a lot of money, okay?
Craig Linssen: Mm-hmm
Annie Sargent: I mean, to tease you, even with Apple [00:13:00] money, Craig. Yeah, you need to, you need to be careful, you know, not to get-
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm
Annie Sargent: And, you know, in a lot of these tiny villages, obviously you have houses that are old. You have some that are a little newer, that were built in the ’60s, the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, sometimes not as carefully as… It’s rarely the super old ones that have foundation problems. It’s more often the ’50s and ’60s ones that may get into that.
But with the older ones, the problem is getting enough light in. Because all these beautiful medieval villages, the houses can be pretty dark inside, you know.
Now, if you go on a beautiful summer day, it’s great, but you have to look at the orientation and… Apparently, the holy grail for most people in your situation is a house with good exposition, good natural light, a little bit of a garden, and a pool. People want a pool.
Juliana Linssen: Yes. They definitely [00:14:00] want a pool.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, that’s the holy grail. And so it’s not just you looking for that, it’s a lot of people looking for that.
Juliana Linssen: Luckily, there’s a lot of houses with pools. I mean, almost every single one that we’ve looked at had that option. So it’s not so hard to find.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah.
Var vs Luberon Search Expansion
Annie Sargent: And so have you continued your search?
Craig Linssen: Yes. Well, the upside to this whole process is, you know, we did fly over to look at the property in person, and so we got to explore the whole region and really kind of, you know, fell in love with that whole area. The Var region is just kind of a paradise for mountain biking and road biking and hiking and you know, there’s little lakes there. You can do canoeing and all kinds of stuff. So for the outdoor type of activities that we like, we really liked the area quite a bit.
And then after kind of exploring that area, we actually went over to the Luberon as well, to Avignon and that area outside, and we kind of fell in love with that area as well. So we’ve sort of… [00:15:00] we’ve sort of expanded our search a little bit and we’re kind of still looking in both regions now, basically.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. They’re very similar. You know, they’re quite similar.
I mean, Luberon, you’re a little further inland, but you’re also closer to the train, the TGV to Paris, so, gorgeous areas both. Like, honestly, it just depends on what you want. You probably have a little more land, perhaps in the Luberon. I don’t know. I haven’t…
Juliana Linssen: Yes. We have noticed that in the Luberon you get a little bit more space, for the most part, a little bit closer to the vineyards and everything, and a little bit less expensive actually than the Var region.
The Var region, the nicer homes tend to be a little bit more than the Luberon nicer houses. And then, also the Luberon gets a lot hotter in the summertime. In the Var region, it’s actually a little more mild, because it’s a little bit closer to the mountains.
Annie Sargent: Right.
Juliana Linssen: So, there’s that as well. I heard this summer was [00:16:00] a really, really hot summer. They had several heat spells, and it was quite hard.
Annie Sargent: We had one, and for the whole country, unfortunately, pretty much, we had one in late June and two weeks in… The one in late June was just six, seven, eight days, I’m not sure exactly, but it was long. And then in late August, it was, like, two weeks, and it was awful. It was to the point where people were pretty much confined to their houses, because unless you went out at 7:00 in the morning, like you could be out and about between 7:00 and noon, but then after that, you know, it’s 40 degrees outside, which is what, 105 or something?
And it’s not dry heat. Because I lived in Utah for quite a while, and in Utah, even 105, it’s such dry heat that of course you don’t want to be standing in the sun for any longer than you have to, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to kill you. But [00:17:00] humidity plus heat, it’s dangerous. I mean, it’s just, honestly, it’s dangerous.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: So you need a place to, like, especially young people, young babies and toddlers, and older people need a place to cool off, and where they can sleep, because it becomes very hard to sleep.
So that’s another thing to consider is you need to have air conditioning or heat pumps or something in the bedrooms, where you can cool off your bedrooms at night so you can sleep, you know?
Juliana Linssen: Yeah, for sure. That’s definitely one of the things that we always ask.
Working with French Realtors
Annie Sargent: (Mid-roll ad spot) How have you found working with French realtors? Is it easy? Are they very different from American realtors that you’ve dealt with?
Juliana Linssen: Yes, it’s different because every region has its own real estate agency. So you don’t have, like, one person that’s helping you and help you find a place wherever you want. So if you want to do in the Luberon, even within the Luberon, there’s an agency [00:18:00] for each little region of the Luberon. The Vaucluse would be one agency. Other areas would be a different agency. We talked to, like, three or four different people, so we’re making all kinds of friends, which is great. But at the same time it’s basically one agency per region, and there’s a million agencies, of course. Luckily we have been finding people that have been, like, really nice and helpful. But you have to be super proactive. You have to go after it. They’ll send you listings and things like that, but they’re not, like, on top of it as much as here in the US, they actually harass you a little bit, you know? They want to make sure they get the deal, so to speak. And in France, it’s a little bit more relaxed, more laid back a little bit. But so far we hadn’t had, like, a terrible experience or anything like that.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: So you get on the phone, you say, "Hey, my name is Juliana and I want to buy a house in this village," or how do you do this?
Juliana Linssen: No, there’s a listing website called Green Acres that has listings from basically all over France. They’re [00:19:00] not attached to any specific agency. They’re just the listings. And then you… We just go through, and if we find something we like, we contact the agency that has that specific listing, per se. So, that’s how we’ve been doing. I don’t even know if that’s the only way to do it, but that’s how we found ourselves doing it.
Craig Linssen: It’s interesting as well because a lot of the listings, they might only have 5 or maybe 10 pictures of the entire property. You have to inquire and say, "I’d like more information. I’d like more pictures." And then they’ll send you a few more pictures, but maybe not the floor plan, and then you have to ask for the floor plan. And then, you know, maybe they’ll send you a few more pictures or agree to do a kind of a FaceTime walkthrough of the property as well.
So it’s usually a lot of back and forth just to even be able to see one property, and it’s not like the US where you get, you know, 150 pictures of every property and you kind of know exactly what you’re getting into before you even go to look at it.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, [00:20:00] yeah. No, it’s very different.
And the other thing that happens in these beautiful villages is that sometimes, especially if they’re, like, sorts of maison de village, meaning it’s, they’re in the heart of the village, it’s in the older part of the village, they will be a bit convoluted. Like, the floor plans are rarely simple. So they, you know, they’ve added a bathroom or another bedroom somewhere that you’re like, "And how do you get to that?" "Oh, there’s a ladder." And you’re like, "What? There’s a ladder?" You know? Have you had stuff like that?
Juliana Linssen: Yes.
Craig Linssen: We’ve seen all of that.
Juliana Linssen: We’ve seen some really funky floor plans. And I’m an interior designer. I mean, I do that for a living. So I look at the floor plans, I’m like, "What were they thinking?" You know? And I already start, like, changing and thinking what you could do with it and things like that, but it’s fascinating.
Craig Linssen: There always has to be one crazy bathroom.
Juliana Linssen: Right.
Craig Linssen: The one crazy kitchen.
With a stove that’s two feet lower than the rest of the countertops, [00:21:00] and yeah. All kinds of interesting floor plans.
Annie Sargent: It’s a really interesting, coincidence that you’re into interior designing, and you’ve probably designed places, and so you know what to look for. But for somebody who’s, like, first arriving in the French real estate market, they probably don’t even realize that half of the houses are going to have really weird things happening.
Juliana Linssen: Yes, always.
You always find something that’s kind of, you know, out of the box, so to speak. Yeah.
Annie Sargent: And people try to add more space, so you have some sort of, the roofing structure is not made to be opened up and lived in, but they’ll do it anyway. They’ll try and make it work and it’s really bizarre. You have to be a midget to be up there.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah, and Craig is really tall, we have seen quite a few places that have, like, really low ceilings or, like, beams coming down really low, and then he would have to be, like, basically…
Craig Linssen: There was a really interesting village house in Bonnieux that we saw that was just, it was almost like a [00:22:00] cave in the inside that they had turned into livable space.
It was essentially, I don’t know if animals used to live in there originally or what, but it was really wild, just the whole inside of the house, how they had managed to transform this village house into, you know, a livable space. But the floor plan was just really wild.
Annie Sargent: And that animals might have lived there is not impossible. There’s a lot of houses where, you know, the bottom part was for the animals, and above you would have the people.
Juliana Linssen: Exactly. Yeah.
Annie Sargent: Anyway, so things to think about, things to look out for.
Juliana Linssen: Sure.
Inspections and Buying Advice
Annie Sargent: Do you have specific recommendations that you would give people?
Like, specific " Be careful about this or about that, when looking for a house, make sure to ask for this or that." I’m not sure.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. They typically will do what they call a diagnose, which is basically the structure of the house gets looked at, and if the electricity works and the… You know, that kind of thing. But they [00:23:00] don’t push or necessarily recommend for you to do your own structural analysis. But I would definitely recommend that you do that and there’s engineers that are available to do that. It’s a little costly, but if it’s a house that you’re really interested in purchasing, it’s worth doing that. Because sometimes the situation with the house, they actually kind of hid the information from us in the middle of the paperwork basically.
Well, and they had done a lot of the renovation themselves, and so, they basically plastered over some of the cracks in the walls. And, you know, on the surface it all looked great, but then, you know, we found out that there were some reports that the house actually had serious foundation issues.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: And so to the point of potentially, you know, sinking and that sort of thing. So
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: It looked great on the surface, but unless… You know, if we would’ve hired an engineer, we could have found this out earlier in the process and saved us just months and months of time through the whole process.
Annie Sargent: So if you wanted to [00:24:00] find an engineer, how would you go about finding a person like that? Would you ask for the realtor to recommend someone or the Yellow Pages or…?
Juliana Linssen: Yes. The realtor usually knows, they usually are really good sources of, like, just people. You know, they know contractors and engineers and obviously notaires and things like that as well.
The Buying Process Typically Takes 6 Months
Juliana Linssen: The other thing that I would recommend for people, definitely be patient because, the process itself, like once you even found the house and started the process, it’s a minimum of I would say like four to six months to even get to the point that you actually get keys, you know? It isn’t something quick. And they say if you want to sell a house, they say plan on a year, to be able to actually sell the house. So it is a much longer process than what we’re used to here in the US for sure, so it definitely requires a lot of patience.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. So the people I know who’ve done this faster, it’s because they knew the people who were selling, they don’t realize this, but, you know, they’ve [00:25:00] already agreed on a lot of things. They’ve already done a lot of the finding out, and so obviously they are ready to sign faster and move along faster. But it’s better to kind of take your time, I think. It’s a major decision and you know, it’s an excuse to come visit a few places.
Juliana Linssen: Yes.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: Exactly, yes. So we have planned another trip now, in about a month’s time, or a month and a half. We’re going to be going to the Luberon region. So we’re actually going to do, spend a couple days in Paris and then take the train to Avignon, and we’re going to stay in a gîte in Les Solorgues, so kind of get that experience of actually staying there and not just as tourists, but you know, going to the market and cooking and all of that, just see how that feels as well and how we can get around.
Annie Sargent: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Will you rent a car at that point?
Juliana Linssen: Yes, we’ll rent a car.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. You kind of have to in that area.
Juliana Linssen: Yes. Yeah, especially that the Var as well [00:26:00] and around Pays de Fayence, that region, you definitely need a car as well. And all the roads in that area were surprisingly small we found. Surprisingly small with very fast drivers.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. You know, you were mentioning enjoying cycling, and I can see you have bicycles behind you there. You have to be a bit brave, the Vaucluse especially. They really drive fast I think on these little roads.
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Annie Sargent: So wear bright clothing, make sure they can see you.
Juliana Linssen: Yes.
Annie Sargent: Because they’re not going to slow down much, you know, unfortunately.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: All right.
Var Highlights and Must Sees
Annie Sargent: So, tell us about all these places, why did you fall in love with this place?You’re hardly the first ones, but I would like to hear it from you. What attracted you, and what places do you recommend people don’t miss? Like a few places in the Var, since you’re just starting in the Luberon, but in the Var, what are a few places that you think [00:27:00] are extraordinary?
Juliana Linssen: So we started out the trip in Grasse, which is kind of like where that region actually kind of starts. We loved Grasse. I mean, obviously the perfume museum and all of that. And then Fayence is a really nice… It’s like the bigger little village there. You know, just walking around it’s very charming. They have a bread museum, a really small museum, but really cute. And Montauroux it’s another bigger village there. Definitely I wouldn’t miss Seillans. It’s a tiny little village, but it’s just really, really beautiful.
And you really can’t go wrong, you can go from village to village. I mean, I think in one day you can easily see, you know, two or three villages. There’s nine in the whole region. And then they have a really beautiful lake in that region too called Lac de Saint-Cassien. It’s kind of like a narrow lake, but there are beaches around the lake, it kind of depends on what people like to do, like what Craig said, like mountain biking or [00:28:00] hiking, there’s lots of that in that region.
And then, you know, of course, wineries too. We went to d’Esclans?
Craig Linssen: D’Esclans.
Juliana Linssen: D’Esclans. They make the Whispering Angel rosés, which are really famous here in the US, and they have a beautiful property there where you can see the chateau and kind of walk around and the wine is just fantastic and it’s right outside of Seillans, like about 15 minutes. So, there’s a lot to do.
I mean, like I would say like anywhere in France, you know, all of those places have a lot of different options for depending on what people like to do, but definitely Fayence and Montauroux and Seillans were the highlights.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Perched Village Charm
Craig Linssen: And they’re all just really beautiful mountaintop villages with, you know, little narrow streets. In Seillans, you can’t even drive inside the village. The roads are just too small for a car even, so it’s all just walking only.
Annie Sargent: Mm-hmm.
Craig Linssen: And when we were there in May, it really felt kind of like a little hidden gem because there was just, I think we were the only [00:29:00] people in Seillans that day. We had the whole village all to ourselves, and a couple vendors selling artwork and whatnot. But I mean, it was just really quiet and really, really lovely.
And Fayence as well, even being a little bit of a bigger village right next door, it was just super quiet and quaint and very, very charming. So easy to find parking and all of that.
I’m sure it’s maybe a little different in the height of the summer, but in May we were surprised, you know, how quiet that whole region was, which was really nice.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m stunned at the numbers. I’m just browsing around this area and I’m stunned at the number of little rivers. They’re probably very small. So you have the Lac de Saint-Cassien that you were mentioning earlier, and then you have all of these little blue, you know, little river thingies.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: Which is a reminder that this part of France is very [00:30:00] dry, but it also has a lot of water.
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Annie Sargent: And that is why they grow so much of our fruits and vegetables.
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Annie Sargent: And then you’ve mentioned Fayence a few times. That’s F-A-Y-E-N-C-E.
Juliana Linssen: Yes.
Craig Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Skydiving and Gliders
Annie Sargent: And it looks like they have a airplane parachutisme Fayence, so they have like-
Juliana Linssen: Yes, that’s what they’re known for.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: For jumping. Oh, they jump out of airplanes, oh no.
Craig Linssen: You can also take a glider plane. In that last picture there, you can ride in one of the little glider planes and get a tour of the whole region in a motorless airplane if you’re brave enough as well.
Annie Sargent: Wow.
Craig Linssen: We of course didn’t do that, but that’s-
Juliana Linssen: We didn’t do that.
Annie Sargent: You know, this is really pretty. I’m sure you’ve sent me some lovely pictures of the area, but it is so pretty. I mean, all of France has something beautiful about it, but this really looks [00:31:00] stunning. And you have the short kind of live oak or shrubs type of garrigue sort of landscape. Just, it looks like, oh my goodness, they have like individual helicopters, tiny helicopters. You’d have to be a bit crazy to get on those things as far as I’m concerned, but-
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: Yes, I agree.
Annie Sargent: But good on them, man. Good on them.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. That picture, we were just there-
Craig Linssen: Oh, yeah.
Juliana Linssen: … at that exact place.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Accessibility in Hill Towns
Juliana Linssen: You know, it’s a perched village, so definitely a workout walking up and down the little roads, but really, really nice.
Annie Sargent: Well, that’s another thing to consider, especially if you’re moving to France in your older years. I mean, not for you two, you have 30 years before you have to worry about this. But there are people who are considering moving who are in their 60s and 70s, and probably they should consider whether the village is actually accessible at all.
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Annie Sargent: Should they ever need a wheelchair, should they ever need a, I mean, you can break your leg at any age, I guess, [00:32:00] but don’t buy a house where you have to climb three flights of stairs just to go get your shoes, you know?
Craig Linssen: Yeah. Yeah.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Craig Linssen: Take the ladder to go to the bathroom.
Juliana Linssen: Exactly.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everybody’s smart enough to figure that out, but surprisingly some people, you’re not so sure.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. And then, you know, it’s a trade-off because you’re always going to have, like, nicer views and a quieter place when you are like, you know, higher up in a little, you know, hill or something like that.
Craig Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Juliana Linssen: But then, yeah, it’s a little more treacherous for sure.
Craig Linssen: Yeah. Seillans, you definitely do quite a bit of climbing, to get to the top of the village.
It’s a good workout just to walk around that little village, for sure.
Meeting Neighbors Fast
Annie Sargent: There are also a lot of expats, a lot of English speakers in this area. There has been forever. And so even if your French is not quite ready for, you know, taking the DELF exam or whatever, you’ll [00:33:00] learn eventually.
If you live there, you’re going to learn a lot of things, and the same advice that I’ve given to other people, but I’ll repeat it again, the best way to get to know French people if you move somewhere, is to ask them for something.
So be brave, put on your smile, go knock on the neighbor’s door and say, "I would like to make some crepe and I don’t have enough eggs. Could I borrow a couple of eggs?" And they probably have a couple of eggs that they can let you have, and then the next day you go with a nice big six pack of eggs, and you say, "Oh, thank you so much. That was really helpful."
And you know what? That’s it. You know this neighbor. You know, you’re going to be chatting with them. It’s not hard to make that sort of conversation, but it’s really important that you make the effort to meet your neighbors, and asking for help is always the best way.
Or, "I received this letter and I’m not sure what it means," of course, you don’t want to do that about something too private, but, [00:34:00] you know, if it’s something that’s like, " can you explain how this works in this country?" I’m sure they’d be happy to. And also join associations. So maybe go jump out of an airplane like these crazy people are doing.
Juliana Linssen: No, I don’t know.
Annie Sargent: There’s probably associations for people who repair airplanes, or who knows? Who knows? If you have an interest… Or cycling clubs, or, my husband is, he likes to cycle, but he’s very intimidated by the local cycling clubs because he’s like, "There’s some 70-year-old guys there that are just passing me so fast." "I don’t know if I can keep up with them."
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. Yeah, and Craig bakes too. He’s an amazing baker. He bakes his bread and everything, and he has his own starter and everything.
So, I tell him, like, well, go there and take some baking classes or join a bakery or something. Bake a sourdough bread for the [00:35:00] neighbor to get to know them as well.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, sourdough is not something we have that much. Here it’s called pain au levain, and it’s… French people have more of a taste for not tasting the yeast, most of us.
But there are some people who really go after this pain au levain thing, but if they don’t like it, they’ll also tell you, because they are French, and they are very blunt. And you got to get used to that, you know? They’ll say, "Ooh, your bread is, like, too yeasty. Ah, I’m not sure," you know? That’s very nice.
Pets and Moving Plans
Annie Sargent: Will you be moving with dogs? I saw a dog behind you there, so are you planning on moving your dog, if you have any kids, anything like that?
Juliana Linssen: We don’t have children. Our dog is, we would love to move there with her, but she’s 13 and a half now, so we don’t know if she’s going to be around, you know, that long. But if she is, we’ll try to find a way to [00:36:00] bring her with us.
Annie Sargent: But we’re very lucky that our old dog, she was almost 15 when we moved, and I just couldn’t put her in a cage to fly to France. My husband’s brother adopted her and kept her for a few months, for us. The, you know, time she had left, she was completely blind by then and all of that, and-
Juliana Linssen: Aw. Aw, yeah.
Annie Sargent: You know, she was a sweetheart, but she was just, like, I’m sure she would have not survived the trip, so…
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. Yeah.
Annie Sargent: Exactly.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. If it was today, she would probably do it, but two more years on a dog that’s already 13 and a half, I think that’ll be-
Annie Sargent: Is that your timeframe? You’re hoping to do this within two years?
Juliana Linssen: We’ve been, you know, kind of talking about it. I mean, it would all depend on what Craig said, like, in terms of work situation, and see if he could potentially get a transfer there or something like that, and when he’s actually ready to, you know, make the leap.
For me, you know, it’s a little bit easier, I mean, I do have my own [00:37:00] interior design practice here, and we do well and everything, but I could do interior design pretty much anywhere, you know? So that’s what we’re thinking about, maybe two, two to three years.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Work Transfers and Passports
Annie Sargent: When we moved here, my husband worked for Symantec, which is another big company, and they actually transferred him to the Paris office, knowing that he would only fly in for a few days in the first year. He flew back to Paris for work a few times, but it didn’t have to go that often.
But he had to kind of push it. He had to say, "Look, it’s either that or I’m quitting, because my wife really wants to move." And they said, "Well, okay, let’s see how we can keep you." And they did. And they did. And it worked out.
Juliana Linssen: That’s great.
Annie Sargent: Very nice. But not everybody can do this, you know?
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Annie Sargent: And, you said you have a European passport already, right?
Juliana Linssen: I do. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Annie Sargent: That’s so much easier. Is it a Portuguese passport, or what country is it?
Juliana Linssen: It’s actually Polish, [00:38:00] because my grandparents were Polish, so.
Annie Sargent: There you go. Yeah, well, they’re Europeans, it works. It’s great.
Juliana Linssen: Exactly.
EU yeah.
It’s great. (Mid-roll ad spot ) What other advice do you have for people, as last words? Anything you would like to share with everybody about this journey that you’re on?
Patience and Due Diligence
Juliana Linssen: Just be patient, like I said.
There’s something for everyone. So, you know, if you’re more interested in a quieter place there, you will find that.
Or if you want more, see more people and be in a place that there’s more going on, you would also find that, you know?
That’s the great thing, I think, about France. It’s like it’s so diverse in that sense that there’s so many different areas and different places, and there’s a little bit for everyone, you know? Try to find in your heart what would really interest you, what you really love, and you will be able… if France is a place you want to go, you will be able to find something that you enjoy to do there, for [00:39:00] sure. We haven’t had a chance to go to the north yet, but I heard that’s also incredible. I like warmer weather, and that’s why the south of France is a place that interests us more because of the climate and everything. But, I’m sure there’s incredible, places that you can find in the northern region as well.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Craig Linssen: Yeah, and in terms of the real estate process, just enjoy the journey because you’re not going to be able to rush the process.
Yeah.
It takes a while. You know, we learned a lot the first time around, and I think we’re much better prepared, you know, for the next house when we do decide to put in an offer that we’ll be a little bit more prepared just in terms of getting a, you know, doing your own reports upfront, you know, surveys of the house and whatnot. And just, knowing that it’s going to take quite a long time to close, so just enjoy, enjoy the process.
Annie Sargent: Well, and also, you know, you’ve been through a difficult, an experience where somebody was clearly trying to hoodwink you into not noticing some [00:40:00] very costly problems. And so now you are going to be, you know, once burned, twice shy, I guess. You’re going to be very careful where you tread, which is what something you should do anyway.
Because even if people don’t have any intention to hide anything from you, but even more if they are intentionally hiding things, because they’re going to hand you a stack of documents in French. You’re not going to, you know… You do the due diligence, like, look at translation, even if it’s automatic translation, just to read through everything, just to make sure like, "Does this make sense? Is there something here that we need to discuss?"
Ask more questions, whatever. And the worst thing you can do, I think, is fall in love with a place and just… I don’t know if you’re like this, but my sister is especially like this. When she gets an idea in her head, she’s worse than me. I’m pretty much like this, but she’s worse. When she gets an idea in her head, she gets obsessed, and she will not let go. Like, she will [00:41:00] just bring it up again, and again, and again until it’s done.
And so, people who get like that, you have to be a little bit careful because don’t get too obsessed. Don’t be married to it until it’s done, right?
Juliana Linssen: Yes. That’s what we’ve learned too. I mean, even if you absolutely love a property there’s things that can happen, and it’s not over till it’s over, so you kind of have to know that, things can happen along the way.
Financing with French Loans
Annie Sargent: And I didn’t ask, but I’m assuming you’re not going to be looking for a loan for this purchase, or will you?
Juliana Linssen: Yeah, we are. We already got through that process, we had already gotten pre-approved for a loan for part of the purchasing. The interest rates in France are actually quite attractive for Americans right now.
Annie Sargent: They’re going up, but yes.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. But comparing to here, it’s still a much better value.
Annie Sargent: And what bank offered you a loan?
Craig Linssen: We worked through a company called Blue Sky Finance that was referred to us actually by our finance person here [00:42:00] in the States. They contract out through multiple different banks, and then-
Annie Sargent: Uh-huh
Craig Linssen: … you know, it’s whichever bank agrees to actually give you the money in the end.
Annie Sargent: Blue Sky Finance. Okay.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Craig Linssen: And we managed to get pre-approved through them, and our loan agent, Anne-Marie was really wonderful through this whole process, so.
Annie Sargent: And then you can just reapply as soon as you have another property and just bring it back up.
Craig Linssen: Yep.
Juliana Linssen: Mm-hmm.
Craig Linssen: Exactly.
Juliana Linssen: Yes. and he’s great. He works a lot with Americans that want to purchase in France. I can give you his information if you want to.
Annie Sargent: If you would send that to me, I’ll add it to the show notes. I’m sure several people will be interested in this because that’s… I don’t know why I didn’t think about it. You know, you say Apple, I’m thinking, "Oh, millionaire, for sure." But, having a way to finance part of the purchase is also important for a lot of people.
Juliana Linssen: Yes.
Annie Sargent: All right. Well, Juliana and Craig, thank you so much for talking to me. It’s [00:43:00] been very interesting. Makes me want to go to that area, really.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah, you should go. You’re going to love it. I’m sure you’re going to love it. Yeah.
Verdon and Outdoor Life
Craig Linssen: They have in that area as well, there’s the, they call it the Grand Canyon of France. I forget the actual French name.
But it’s quite close to there, and we didn’t make it this time around, but it’s supposed to just be absolutely beautiful for hiking and bird watching.
Annie Sargent: Ah, the Gorges du Verdon. Yes, yes. It’s absolutely beautiful. That green water is like wow.
Craig Linssen: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: If you like canoeing, if you like hiking. I mean, French people typically are very outdoorsy, the ones that live in the countryside. They love, going out every weekend. Pretty much a French person, you know, every weekend they’re going to have something that they want to go do, either attend a festival, some people are more into museums and, you know? But they, we are a kind of people who go out and enjoy what’s around, and I think that’s an attitude that a lot of people who talk to me on the podcast appreciate, because there’s always something going on.
[00:44:00] If it’s January or February, things get quieter, but…
Juliana Linssen: Yeah. And that’s the other thing that attracted us as well, because we were in California. It seems like it’s very similar in that sense. It wouldn’t be such a big, a cultural shock, so to speak, because here we’re very outdoorsy, too, and the climate is somewhat similar, as well. And we have the beaches and everything here, too.
So I think that it’s a good transition between California and south of France, for sure.
Annie Sargent: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for talking to me. Best wishes on your search. I think that’s the fun part is, it’s like a treasure hunt.
Juliana Linssen: Uh-huh. Exactly.
Craig Linssen: And I also want to give a shout-out for your, we used your service to give us a trip itinerary for our first trip over there.
And that was just, that was really, really useful and helpful for us.
Juliana Linssen: Yeah.
Craig Linssen: So thank you for that, and just want to give you a little plug for that service, because it was wonderful as well.
Annie Sargent: Thank you very much. Yeah, I enjoy doing that. And it helps to talk to somebody who’s [00:45:00] local and who can, you know, tell you, "Yeah, yeah, that’s worth it. That’s cool. Go for it." And this other thing, eh, maybe do it if you have more time."
Juliana Linssen: Yeah, exactly.
Craig Linssen: Exactly.
Annie Sargent: All right. Thank you, Juliana and Craig, and best wishes on your treasure hunt.
Craig Linssen: Yeah, thank you.
Annie Sargent: Merci beaucoup. Au revoir.
Juliana Linssen: Au revoir.
Craig Linssen: Au revoir.
Annie Sargent: Learn French. Keep it up.
Juliana Linssen: We’re trying.
Craig Linssen: Au revoir.
Thanks and Patron Support
Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champion, Terry C. I was just pre-recording a bunch of episodes, and I got an email saying, "Oh, somebody joined Patreon."
Wonderful to have you, Terry. Thank you so much.
Would you join them too? [00:46:00] You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge more so you can have access to more of the rewards.
Go to patreon.com/joinus. And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
If you’re planning a trip to France and would like some expert help, you can hire me as your itinerary consultant. If you already have a plan, I’ll help you fine-tune it, and if you’re just feeling overwhelmed by all the choices and not sure what sources to trust, or are getting into some difficulties figuring out how things work, I can design a custom plan for you, and you’ll find all the details at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
RER B Overhaul Updates
Annie Sargent: Let’s talk about the RER B. If you’ve ever taken the RER B, and I have, you know it can be a bit of an adventure.
[00:47:00] Well, Île-de-France Mobilités has announced what they’re calling a massive recovery and modernization plan, five billion to overhaul the line.
The goal is to push punctuality above 90% by 2027. For reference, it was at 85% in 2023 and has improved to 89% in 2025. It’s better, but not good enough.
A big part of this plan is maintenance. New equipment at the Massy Maintenance Center will make it much faster to service the trains. There’s a new system that allows crews to remove wheel assemblies without splitting the train in two, saving over an hour per intervention.
That means trains get back into service faster. But the big disruption will continue. Summer 2026 will bring major track and signaling network, especially around the Gare du Nord and the Châtelet area. Parts of the line will [00:48:00] be shut down between late July and mid-August. This always happens, but this one is going to be a biggie.
Officials admit it will be painful. If they think it’s going to be painful, you’re in for a treat. But they say it’s necessary to fully modernize the infrastructure by 2032.
Longer terms, a semi-automated driving system called Nextio will be installed by 2031.
It’s designed to ease congestion in the tunnel between Châtelet and Gare du Nord, one of the worst bottlenecks in the region. And then there are new trains. The long-awaited MI20 trains, a hundred and forty-six of them, should start testing soon and enter service around 2028.
They’ll increase capacity by twenty-five percent, probably by putting people on top of each other’s heads. Oh, actually, yes, they’ll be partly double-decker, [00:49:00] ha-ha, and better handle passenger flow. There’s a new rule for people on the tracks.
Instead of stopping completely, trains will now slow to thirty kilometers per hour in some cases, which could reduce the related disruptions by forty percent.
Yeah, any time they have a suspicion of a person on the track, they stop everything, and usually there’s no person on the track. It was somebody imagining things.
So the bottom line is more construction, more inconvenience in the short term, but if everything goes as planned, a significant, more reliable RER B in the next decade. So if you fly into CDG, this is the one that you need to watch if you take the RER B.
I’m still in the taxi camp for airport transportation, at least until after this renovation is completed, which going to take a few years, so yeah. I’m not going to change my mind anytime soon.
Cathar Castles Revisited
Annie Sargent: I’ve been spending some time [00:50:00] lately visiting Cathar castles in the Aude department, not very far from Toulouse, partly because I’m getting more and more requests from customers who want to do day trip visits to the Aude department, and this is definitely one that you can’t do without a car.
So I figured I should go back and check how things actually are on the ground, how difficult the access is, what the paths are really like, where you park, you know, and whether it’s realistic for a day trip.
And that’s turned into a really interesting experience because it reminded me how strange memory can be when it comes to places.
Sometimes you remember a site one way, and when you go back years later, it feels completely different. So I’ve done a couple of different Sundays. One Sunday, I went to a castle that was new to me called Puivert. Last Sunday, returned to a place I had been before, the Quatre Châteaux de Lastours.
Puivert was a really nice surprise. It’s one of those castles where quite a lot of the structure is still standing. I mean, no roof or [00:51:00] anything, but they have a large tower that you can climb. From the top, the views over the countryside are fantastic, and it’s an easily accessible castle, Cathar castle, which is not common.
Most of them are really hard you know, it’s a hike to get up there.
What struck me most there is how green and peaceful the area is, but of course, we’ve had a lot of rain, early this spring, so I’m sure it’ll get very dry pretty soon.
So when people hear Cathar castle, they often imagine dramatic rocky peaks like Montségur or Peyrepertuse.
Puivert feels quite different. It’s surrounded by rolling hills. It gives a soft atmosphere. It’s wonderful.
And it also has a fascinating historical detail. One of the towers is called Musicians’ Towers, the one that you can visit, as a matter of fact, because inside there are carved stone figures of medieval musicians playing instruments, lutes, bagpipes, fiddles. That’s not something you expect to find in a [00:52:00] fortress. Well, there’s a lot to the history that I’m learning about, this explains that.
Then I went back to Lastours, which is always very spectacular. If you’ve never seen it, Lastours isn’t just one castle, it’s four castles lined up along a narrow ridge. It’s above the Orbiel Valley. When you look at them from the viewpoint across the valley, they almost look unreal, like something from a fantasy movie.
But here again, my memory did not match reality. I remembered the hike was a bit of a climb, but manageable. This time I thought, "Whoa, this is a lot steeper than I remembered." Okay, I’m older. Perhaps that’s what it is, but, mm, I’ve never been a very good hiker, so who knows?
But while I was there at the Lastours Castles, I learned something I had never heard before.
Right near Lastours, there used to be a gold mine, and that’s one of the reasons why they built four castles, because there were mines, in the Orbiel Valley again. It operated for many years, but it’s now closed. [00:53:00] The problem is that the mining left behind high levels of arsenic contamination in the soil and waterway.
Because of that, the authorities now monitor the water and soil very closely, throughout this whole area. I had visited Lastours before, but I had absolutely no idea about this part of the history, so it… Thank you day trip customers, you’re forcing me to learn about the history of my own country, which is fantastic.
I’m also reading a couple of books about this whole thing, so it’s wonderful.
Layers of History and Farewell
Annie Sargent: Every place has layers of history, some medieval, some surprisingly modern. But I should say, I cannot take you to the old gold mine. It’s closed for good, and they don’t want people hanging around there, especially with the arsenic and all, so yeah.
So I would say it’s always worth revisiting places that you think you already know. Your memory might not match what you see today, and you might discover completely new stories hiding in the landscape.
My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan, [00:54:00] who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast
Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast, an episode with Michael and Nancy Armstrong, seasoned travelers who have explored France extensively. They’ll share their favorite activities, places, and offer valuable travel tips. I really enjoyed our chat, and I think you will too.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
Copyright
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.[00:55:00] [00:56:00]
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Episode PageCategories: Moving to France, Provence