On The Hunt for a Car and a House

Welcome to the 30th post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

House hunting and car hunting are on the agenda this week. There is a lot to this house hunting thing. We will tell you all about this weeks adventure below. Before I get into our weekly update, I must say Europe is suffering a record making heat wave. I guess the US has a heat wave going on too. Our Airbnb doesn’t have AC and as much as I said that the shutters are pretty good, we broke down and bought a large misting oscillating fan. Won’t run the mist inside the house but it was the only model left in the stores. It’s all part of the adventure and we can use the misting fan on the terrace when we finally buy a house.

Also, so glad to see hurricane Erin is not headed for the US, we were keeping our fingers crossed that it wouldn’t threaten the coast.

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. We publish each Sunday. 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 American retired expats. If you like the blog, please subscribe. It is free to subscribe and there are no advertisements. I mean, I might put a plug if for companies that we like, but no paid ads.

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.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025. We are into our 2nd week now so are still finding our footing. Not too concerned as we will be finding our footing for a long time (if others are correct, possibly years).

The Car

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have decided to buy a car. There are plenty of people who will tell you that you don’t need a car in France, but that is only true if you live in large cities like Paris, Nice, Toulouse or Bourdeax, but our goal is to live in the countryside as the big city life is not for us. We will take advantage of the low-cost public transportation when we can. I guess you can take the man out of America, but you can’t take America out of the man. I’m convinced that we need a car.

Our car search is particularly stressful as our rental car contract will expire at the end of August. We went to a dealer in Marmande and the salesman explained about the timing. The troubling thing is even a used car purchase can take 2 or 3 weeks and a new car can take months. Even a car on the lot takes a bunch of time. That means we will have to extend our rental or find another rental deal. French Connections HCB says they can make it happen within our rental time constraints. They have come through for us on most everything. I’m skeptically optimistic.

We have been corresponding with HCB and they have located the car that we want. Let’s see how it goes from here. They will handle all of the paperwork, registration and insurance for us.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what car we are planning to purchase. It is a Dacia Sandero Stepway with Expression trim. The six speed manual transmission and 90 hp turbocharged 3-cylinder engine gets you 0 to 60 in about 12 seconds. Impressive right? Supposed to get close to 50 mpg. It has a big enough boot (trunk) for a few suitcases and plenty of room in the back seat for visitors. It is a small car but surprisingly roomy inside. You guessed it, we are planning on having visitors. If all goes well, we will buy the car under budget.

Rosie’s Passport

As you know we pulled together all of the necessary papers to make sure Rosie would be allowed into France and get her pet passport. We want to be able to travel throughout Europe with her, so we think the passport is needed to cross borders. I had talked with French Connections HCB in order to be sure that we had all of the proper docs and to find us a reputable vet. They did all of that, but when we went for Rosie’s appointment at the vet we were told that we must have a permanent residence in order to get Rosie’s passport. The rules have changed. When I alerted HCB that the rules have changed, they told me that they were not aware of the change. They are looking into it. It is not earth shattering, just an example of French bureaucracy, I guess. The rule doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since not all people with animals own a home. When we mentioned this to Jim Geen (a local realtor in Duras), he said he doesn’t have a passport for his dog, and they drive to England, Spain and Belgium without any issues. Of course, his parents moved to France over 20 years ago and he was raised here so he speaks the language and thus doesn’t raise any flags when he crosses a border. I’m not all that sure that any of it is needed if one is just visiting other countries on holiday or via a plane. This is to be resolved.

House Viewings

We met with Jim Green of Cle Rouge Immobilier on Tuesday morning, and he walked us over to the first house that he had selected for us. He told us that our budget was going to make it tough to find a suitable place. I admit our budget could be a challenge, but we have seen a lot of places online that we think fit the budget and our housing needs. We want a place for less than 130,000 Euros, that is about 150,000 USD. Is there a little wiggle room? Of course, but it requires a dream house.

We walked over to this village town house. It has some pluses but needs work and we were not impressed especially given that it was at the top of our budget. I think that I mentioned before, the French don’t stage the places typically, and the clutter, extra furniture and quirky bathrooms didn’t give us a warm fuzzy. To us it looked like a $30,000 renovation budget and probably several months in process would just barely bring it up to snuff. We like that it is in town, had an outdoor space and pretty good parking availability. At the end of the day, it definitely does not make it on our short list.

Jim did show us our new favorite restaurant so the outing wasn’t a total bust. More on the restaurant to follow. We agreed to meet Jim on Thursday to see some options outside of town.

Unfortunately, Thursday didn’t work for the homeowners, so we didn’t see any houses, but Jim took us on a tour around Duras to some really nice villages within 10 or 15 minutes of Duras. All of them had the minimum amenities that we are looking for. So, we now know that smaller villages are just as good as larger ones because within 10 to 15 minutes you can get to so many other larger areas for our shopping needs.

We went through the little village of Monteton first. The town was super cute and had a fabulous view of the farmland and river valley below the village.

Then on to, I think Allemans du Dropt along the Dropt River. They have jazz concerts there and they have some pretty popular musicians play there. Really quaint town with a lot of walking paths by the riverside.

Then we drove past a nice lake to Soumensac, another very French little village with a really fun “fete” on Sunday afternoons with a lot of music, food, and craft booths.

Finally, to Loubes Bernac. OMG Loubes Bernac is gorgeous. Jim said many people say the views form this village look like Tuscany. We haven’t been to Tuscany yet so I can’t vouch for it, but the view was stunning. EB will have to check me on the village names. For sure Loubes Bernac was one of them. I can say that we drove by many vineyards and lots of farms growing figs, hazelnuts, corn, sun flowers and of course grapes.

We noticed that the sun flowers are drooping and looking like they are dying. We asked Jim about this. He said it is kind of sad because all of the school kids know summer is ending and school will be starting soon. They know it when the sun flowers start to die. In fact, the farmers let them die then dry them out and harvest the seeds.

The drive was a little hair raising. The roads are barely wide enough for one car, but it didn’t phase Jim. He just pulled over onto the shoulder and kept his speed even as we met semi-trucks coming at us on these narrow roads. Right next to the road is a deep drainage ditch too. This will take a little getting used to.

We will try to do some research on the towns before our Monday meeting with Jim. On Monday he thinks he will have access to homes to view outside of Duras. Fingers crossed. We are just looking in order to get a feel for what really is out there.

Our New Favorite Restaurant: Parvis Magna

Wow! What a cool little restaurant. Friendly people, great ambiance, good food and wine and gentle on the pocketbook. We signed up for the Saturday Beer Fest. I don’t drink as mush beer as I used to, but we will take one for the team. We tasted 5 beers from the UK and 5 French beers. There was a guy sitting next to us with his soon to be son-in-law. This guy’s name is Marc. So, we had a Mark with a “K” and Marc with a “C”. Marc with a C and his son in law were really good at figuring out which beer was which and Marc with a C was crowned, “King of Beers”. There was 30 or 40 people there and a good time was had by all.

On Wednesday night Elizabeth and I walked the narrow cobble stone streets about 15 minutes after the church bells tolled 6:00PM (18h) on our way to the restaurant. We walked into the restaurant around 6:20 and there weren’t many customers. It seems 6:20 is a bit early as other guests didn’t start trickling into the restaurant until about 7. Almost all of the tables were reserved. Luckily there was one table for two available. We shared a meal of duck breast (magret de canard) cooked on the grill prepared as the owner suggested “the French way” which is (rose) pink inside, grilled over wood and it was tender. It was served with a generous portion of fresh homemade chips. Sooo good. We had a rose wine to start with and then a local red that the owner recommended. It is something to write home about. I ordered a dessert, cheesecake framboise (cheesecake with raspberry topping). It was a little more like a parfait to me. since it was served in a glass. The whole meal including the owner recommended wine cost about 45 euros. We enjoyed talking to a couple from England seated at the table next to us.

Yes, Rosie was with us and behaved herself like the perfect princess she is. EB always brings a little water dish for Rosie.

Night Market

This probably should go in the Lifestyle section, but it is such a cool thing, so I give the Night Market its own segment. We thought that the night market was every other Thursday. That is wrong, it is every Thursday and gets a lot of attention from folks all around the area. Of course, food, wine, beer, music, and all of it outdoors. Unfortunately, it ends in September. I guess once the tourist season ends night markets stop too. We have been told that other towns have night markets and the thing to do is try to go to as many as you can. It is possible since they are on different nights in different towns. We might try a different town before it is all over for the year.

This Thursday we attended our second Duras Night Market. Just a fun experience. We bought a bottle of wine for 7 euros and found a seat and watched people meeting and greeting each other with the famous kiss to each cheek. Men and women alike. Makes me home sick for our friends in Florida.

Rosie came along and did well for an hour or so but got a bit antsy, so we brought her back to the Airbnb and we went back out for an ice cream at the Night Market. The temp cooled down a little and we were able to sit and enjoy or ice cream across the street from the Chateau. It started getting dark and colored lights wash the facade of the chateau. Really pretty. The chateau is on our list of to-dos. Next week the weather is supposed to turn a little cooler so maybe go then.

French Lifestyle and Culture

EB wanted to put in a note about how the trash is managed here. It really is different from the process in Venice, Florida as we are so used to putting our trash cans out by the road and a big truck comes by and picks it all up. Here, in the little town of Duras, the roads are so narrow the garbage trucks that we are accustomed to wouldn’t fit. The solution, every town has a number of trash deposit locations. At these sites the city has set up trash collection receptacles.

Anyway the process is pretty simple, you sort your trash into 4 categories, paper and cardboard, glass, plastics and finally garbage (food waste). Since the fee for trash is included in our rental agreement, I don’t know what the charge for this service is. We were given a card for the garbage receptacle, the other receptacles do not require this card. EB thinks that this card tracks usage and bills the owner. These locations are situated such that the collection trucks have enough room to empty the bins. I haven’t seen the trucks yet. I don’t know how they actually empty the receptacles. The site that we use is about a block and a half away from us.

Another thing that is different is the house search process. you go to an agent and set up an appointment to view properties. Sometimes the appointment doesn’t work out for the owner so you reschedule. Typically, the house is not staged like we do in the states. So you need to look beyond the clutter to see the “gem”. We leave wondering if they really want to sell the house at all.

Something else: EB and I are of the persuasion that if you are on time to an appointment, you are late. We need to get used to the French time as it seems 10 minutes late is on time and not at all disrespectful. It will be tough at first but since we are retired who really cares?

I need to tell you about the shopping carts. A pet peeve of mine is when people don’t return their carts to the cart corral in the parking lot. In this part of France, I have not seen anyone not put the cart back into the corral. I’m serious, not once. It is a little thing, but I love France for it. I was reminded of this on Friday when we went to the market. I think is shows respect for the area, the other people and yourself.

On Friday there was a Brocante in town, so we decided to check it out. A brocante is a sort of a secondhand market. While there is a brick-and-mortar brocante in town, this brocante was set up in the streets. French style. Wine is served!! (of course, there are wine booths at EVERY event) It wasn’t a huge market, so we browsed for a little while in the heat and called it quits. Went back home and EB made lunch from the left-over pasta and chorizo sausage. Delicious although probably not the healthiest.

A thing cool about this brocante was this live trio playing in the shade in the middle of the street market. I thought that I recorded a video with sound, but for some reason it didn’t work right. (operator error?) Too bad, the music was very good.

In case you are wondering they have flea markets too. They are called, Marche au puces.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

On our list for next week:

Follow up car status. Hopefully Nathelie at HCB will have some news for us.

House viewings. Jim has a couple of houses lined up for us to see and we are getting in touch with a Leggett Immobilier in Confolens (our next 3 month stay city) so that we can get her working on potential houses to show us when we go up for a couple of days in September.

Check out villages outside of Duras. We will go back to the villages that we visited with Jim and check out some others too. The weather is supposed to cool down a bit with a slight chance of rain in the middle of the week. Cooler weather will definitely make these little road trips nicer.

Follow up Rosie flea medication. Rosie hasn’t had much issue with fleas over the years, but seems she is having some trouble now due to the heat and the dry grass and weeds. When we took Rosie to the vet they had to order her flea meds as they don’t keep a stock of them (?!?!). They promised to call when the meds arrived. No call yet. High priority for Monday. Then we hit the street market.

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 will be in our 3rd week in France. Time is going by so quickly!

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com