Limousin - warm welcome?

almondbiscuit · 31 January 2021 22:23

This is a good thread if you have not seen it already

What's it like living in the Creuse? General Discussion

Hello all. We moved to France last year and bought a house and land in the Charente a few kilometres from Verteuil sur Charente. Unfortunately things haven't really worked out as planned and we have decided that we are going to sell up, once we have finished renovating the house. We realise it may take some time to sell, but we have savings to tide us over and may even head back to the UK for a few months. We both love living in France, but we feel that the Charente is not the right department for us. Where we are located is just a little too busy and the landscape is a little bland and heavily agricultural. It has also been severely hot and baked here in the Charente this summer, so maybe for us and what we want to do, living at altitude will help moderate the temperature. In hindsight, the Haute Charente/Haute Vienne is much closer to the type of landscape we love. We spent a couple of years researching our move to France and looked at properties in the Dordogne, Haute Vienn…

I spent five months looking for a place to live in the Limousin. We visited a lot of places! We stayed in @Mark gite for part of that time, which is beautiful. It is close to Felletin which I really liked too.

It can rain more than other areas of France, but I think there have been bad droughts too in recent summers. To be honest the rain didn’t bother me, and where we were in the Creuse it didn’t seem to rain that much.

We also stayed in the Correze for a time. Again very beautiful. Maybe more rain there during that time.

Anyway it is more isolated than many other areas of France except if you are near a bigger town. Villages losing the only remaining shop or baker can happen anywhere in the countryside but it will hit harder if there is little else around.

I certainly don’t regret the time I spent there. The countryside is stunning and the people very friendly.

We moved to Saone et Loire in the end. Also a rural area but it does feel more connected and I am not sure that the property prices are that different if you take into account the amount of work required.