I am really liking the looks of this region in France. Not a bad place for a country home, don't you think? The prices are reasonable and I keep seeing these ads for homes in and around Pézenas. Although, I'm actually wondering how far everything is from civilization (i.e. city life, nightlife, amenities, emergency services, etc.). How good is transportation in and out of this region? What say you Fab, Greg, Patriccke, or anyone else who's been there.
Béziers
Carcasonne
Carcasonne
Pézenas
Pézenas
Pézenas
Sète
Joute nautique - Sète
St-Guilhem-le-désert (cute little village!)
Perpignan
Julian
I'm no expert on travel through Southwestern France, but there's a TGV line that takes you from Bordeux to Toulouse to Montpellier and on to Dijon. So civilization is just minutes away.
As you can see from this map, it takes you to most of those cities / towns / villages in your post. It even gets you close to Yann's neck of the woods.
fab
Hola Elaine,
I've been living during 8 month in that region Three years ago.
Pezenas is a little town, but not so far from Montpellier, which is a big city (for a french point of view: a Urban area of about 600 000 people, about the 8th biggest city of France.
Montpellier is very young, with a lot of universities, an opera, tramways, etc. and of course all the facilities such as hospitals, etc.
Montpellier is at about 15km from the beaches, and close to the guarrigues area and Cecennes mountains.
But it still is a "provincial" city, so don't expect to find what you could find a a major European city. For that you can quite quickly go to Barcelona, Montpellier is located on a major axis that goes to Barcelona in about 3hours by car. From Perpignan, Barcelona is about at one hour and half.
the Languedoc-Roussillon is not as famous as is the Cote d'Azur, and much less "glamour-reasearched", so the prices are more affordable than Provence.
But there is also a lot of unemployment, even if the Montpellier area is very dynamic.
Elaine
Thanks, boys, for all your info! Sad about the unemployment. But maybe I can help the the local economy by hiring them as my work staff.
But seriously, I'm definitely considering investing in property there.
greg in noord-frankrijk
fab wrote:
Pezenas is a little town, but not so far from Montpellier, which is a big city (for a french point of view: a Urban area of about 600 000 people, about the 8th biggest city of France.
Disons qu'en 1999 il y avait 288.000 habitants dans l'agglomération montpelliéraine — dont 225.000 sur la commune de Montpellier. À cette époque Pézenas n'atteignait pas 8.000 habitants.
Montpellier se situait au 19e rang des agglos françaises en 1999.
Si l'on prend en compte la communauté d'agglomération, ça faisait une population de 367.000 habitants pour la zone montpelliéraine.
Elaine wrote:
But seriously, I'm definitely considering investing in property there.
C'est une excellente idée puisque le foncier est très cher et le bâti prend énormément de valeur en raison d'une forte poussée démographique qui ne s'est jamais démentie depuis 40 ans au moins.
Sad about the unemployment. But maybe I can help the the local economy by hiring them as my work staff. 
