Chateau de Bridoire: The 100 Years War and Wars of Religion

Week 5 in France 9/1-9/7/2025

Welcome to the 33rd post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

Weather here in southwest France is cooling down. It is starting to feel a little like fall. I suspect by the end of September we will really start to feel it. The fall extends through the end of November, and the leaves will be in full fall glory.

Things on the agenda this week:

• House hunting is still on the agenda this week.
• Sight seeing
• Finalize our car purchase
• Follow up on our Visa validation
• Update the French Culture and Lifestyle section with new things we have learned

Why a Blog?

If this is your first visit to our blog, we will try to keep the story of our move to France interesting enough to bring you back each week. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” moving from Venice, Florida and starting a new chapter of our life in the French countryside as retired expats.

As we shared our move plans with friends and family, we were asked questions about who, what, why, when and where, so we figured that there is enough interest to share the experience. So, we started this blog. Our plan is to publish a brief update on our life in France every Sunday. Hopefully we answer some of those questions and keep answering more as we work our way to our new life. We will also include thoughts on the lifestyle and culture of our new home.

You will want to read our earlier posts to catch up on what motivated us to move to France in the first place. If you have any interest in moving abroad some of our experiences might help inform your decision and help you plan. So far, we are super happy about our decision.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025. We are completing our 5th week and starting on number 6. We have our first month under our belt and starting our 2nd month and loving it.

House Hunt

EB is finding lots of houses to check out. We will be in Confolens this month around the 11th and will stay 2 nights and 3 days. We will get a chance to see several potential houses. Some are actually in our target price range a few are over budget but might make the cut because of furniture options and just because we like them. This is a pre-move reconnaissance trip. How fun is this?

We will spend 3 months in Confolens starting November 1 so we will get to stay in the same place we will be staying.

I have mentioned this before, but it is worth saying again, “It is so important to have a budget in mind and an agreement on the minimum required features”. Luckily EB and I are on the same page as to what our minimum housing requirements are and how much wiggle room we have in our budget.

She is looking locally too, of course, and lining up viewings. We will go back to Castillonnes which is about 20 miles from Duras. There is a house there that we want to see, and EB has set up an appointment to see it.

EB rated two properties with a “C” rating. Her rating them gave me the idea to set up an Excel spreadsheet and created a simple rating system to make it easier to rate the properties, in my little mind anyway. Using the system I have already rated 2 properties.

OMG, Elizabeth has so many properties for us to see. We spent part of the day on Thursday going through a long list of possibilities and narrowed it down to 8 that we will see when we go to Confolens on the 11 of September.

On Friday we had a viewing of a place in Castillonnes and another in Montauriol. Both have their pluses and minuses, but neither one of them are going to work for us. Too many stairs and too much work to be done. If we were 10 years younger maybe the one in Montauriol might have been a contender. It would still be low on the list as the town is not lively enough for us.

Car Purchase Update

We finally got our “driving experience” report from Progressive Insurance and sent it to our adviser at French Connections HCB. EB managed this part of the deal and she said the people at Progressive were very helpful and the lady at Tropical Bay Insurance is our new hero.

HCB has already contacted the dealer so now we are waiting for directions for the next step. The hope is that the car will be ready for us on Thursday as we originally had scheduled before the insurance issue popped up.

Looks like we are set to pick up the car on Monday Sept 8. WoooHooo! Took me a good chunk of the day on Thursday to get it finalized, emails back and forth, resending copies of our passports and signing the contract. I sent the money via my Wise account. After a glitch, the money went through and we are all set.

Insurance was settled and arranged by HCB and all of the paperwork put in order. It turns out that the information from Progressive sent wasn’t exactly what the insurance company needed (they want at least 5 years of history), so they are charging us a rate as if we don’t have any driving experience.

We are going back to the drawing board and trying the DMV to see about getting a 7-year history for each of us. We anticipate our premium will drop significantly once this is factored in. It would have been nice to know these requirements before we got here.

Anyway, this will be a big item off of our list.

We drop off our rental car at Bordeaux airport and pick another one up for the drive to Limoges, where we will pick up our new wheels and finally drop off this 3rd rental at the Limoges airport. It is a long story.

Chateau de Bridoire

Saturday was a day to do some sightseeing, and the Chateau de Bridoire was the perfect outing. The weather was perfect so let’s go (on y va).

It is a lovely privately owned chateau built in the 12th century and renovated several times over the years. The chateau suffered serious damage during the 100 Years War when the English and the French occupied it in turns as part of the spoils of the war. Then during the Wars of Religion Bridoire was a Catholic fief and the neighbors (roughly 10 or 15 miles away) in Monbazillac were Huguenots thus the area was a bloody battle ground during the wars.

In the 15th and 16th century considerable upgrades were added to the chateau. It was abandoned and did suffer from neglect in the late 20th century. In the first part of the 21st century the property was purchased by the Guyot family for 700,000 euros and was lovingly restored and in 2012 it was opened to the public as a Historical Monument Castle. The restoration is continuing even now.

In fact, it is not just a castle, it is a really fun place for children of all ages as the grounds are set up with lots of skill games and a rather challenging hiking trail through the “Enchanted Forrest”.

The castle houses all kinds of artifacts reminiscent of an ancient royal hunting lodge and lots of coats of armor and a huge fireplace. It is pretty cool.

Visa Validation

Another accomplishment this week was our Visa Validation appointment. We had sent a picture of our visas to HCB earlier in the week. On Friday we had a zoom call with Alex, who is a lawyer partner with HCB and located in London. After a few questions and review of our visas he was on the French government website and after maybe 15 or 20 minutes he had both of our visas validated.

The next step in this process is to have a medical appointment which will be scheduled sometime in the next 3 to 6 months. Elizabeth brought up the question of our eligibility for the French health care system. To our relief the eligibility for the French health care system is not at all related to the visa medical appointment. This means that after 90 days in France we will apply for the Carte Vitale and within another couple of months we should be in the system.

French Lifestyle and Culture

Markets

I have written that we go to the street market every Monday morning here in Duras. Different towns have it on different days. We love the market day vibe.

These days many, many, many towns have a market day (jour de marche). It is a street market where local farmers and vendors bring their wares and people from all around the area come to chat and gossip and buy their favorite wine or cheese or sausage or hat or dress or strawberries or olives or veggies or ….

Some towns have had the same day since the 13th century granted by royal charter, a recognition by the king at the time. Having a market was a big honor and meant status and prosperity and is still part of the soul of France. Actually, it is not just a street market, it is an important social and commercial happening where many of the vendors have been bringing their products to the same markets for generations. It is the real France. When you visit France, market day in a small town or village should be one of your must-see events. Ask around for the best markets. I think our Monday market is really good, but we have been told that the market in Issigeac on Sunday is better.

I don’t know when the Night Markets started, but as you know EB and I enjoy the heck out of them. This last Thursday was the last Night Market in Duras for the season. We met a guy that has a house for sale and EB met a lady that does stained glass. She had recently moved from Paris to Marmande but was in Duras for 2 weeks waiting on the sale to be final on their new house. They wanted a slower pace and safe place to raise her son and more house for their money.

Apero

I haven’t talked about Apero yet. It is another French culture thing that we think is awesome. The Apero is synonymous with getting together with family and friends in a relaxed atmosphere before dinner, usually around 6 or 7 pm. People enjoy drinks and light snacks and socialize.

I know this isn’t done just in France. In the states we have “Happy Hour”, but in France the Apero is truly part of the culture. We don’t have any friends yet, but we go to Cafe de la Paix in the evenings and see and meet people so for now it is our Apero time. On Friday night we saw some acquaintances at the Cafe de la Paix and had a very nice chat and met 2 other couples that were sitting in the table next to us.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

We have a couple of things that need follow up:

• Pick up the car in Limoges
• House Hunt continues

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you. Your kind and encouraging words remind us that we can do this. We have completed our 5th week in France.

Weather should be pretty good next week for our drive Monday to Limoge to pick up the car and then towards the end of the week for our drive to Confolens and a bunch of house viewings. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the 50s and 50% chance of rain.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com