Farewell to Duras

Week 13 in France 10/26-11/1/2025

Welcome to the 41st weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog. This is our last week of our third month of full time living in France.

The weather for this week has been cool and partly cloudy most of the time. High temps in the 60s. However, Thursday and Friday were sunny although still in the 60s. Actually very comfortable.

This week is mainly about prepping and moving to Saint Germain de Confolens.

Things on the agenda this week:

• Pack up for the move
• Drive to St Germaine de Confolens
• Move into the gite
• Read up on composting
• Follow up car license plate. Where is the permanent tag?

Why this Blog?

If this is your first visit to our blog, WELCOME!

To all of our regulars, thanks for being here.

If you are planning a move to France or just thinking about it or maybe you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, you might have questions about our adventure. Please feel free to ask in the comment section below. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees.

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. We 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.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025. We are happy to share our experiences and also share YouTube channels that we like and that have helped and inspired us. (See the resources tab for a list of channels)

This Week in General

Monday and Tuesday night at Cafe de la Paix

Weather was cold but not terrible, so we finally had a chance to walk over to the cafe and have a couple of glasses of wine. We bundled up in our jackets and new sweaters, and I put on my new scarf and enjoyed sitting outside under the awning with our rose wine at Cafe de la Paix. Rosie hunkered down in her bed and kept warm at our feet. It was very quiet in town, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves most of the hour or so that we chatted. WE LOVE THIS LIFESTYLE.

Watching the dollar

Sometime back I talked about the dollar losing value as compared to other currencies, specifically the euro. It is something that you should watch if you decide to move to France or anywhere else in the European Union. I bring it up this week because the experts are expecting the dollar to lose more ground in the coming weeks. We will buy some euros before the dollar loses more value. I set up the buy to transfer dollars to my Wise account and from there will exchange for euros. I hope the dollar doesn’t faulter before the exchange goes through. It usually takes a couple of days.

The Moving out process

EB checked in with the host of our Duras Airbnb to confirm the process for leaving. Usually, we just drop the key in the mailbox or put it back into the lock box. This host wants to come before we leave in order to check the inventory of dishes and linens and silverware. Well, I guess we look suspicious. We will play their silly game.

French Connections HCB

We were at the Cafe de la Paix on Tuesday evening and were questioning our decision to work with French Connections HCB for helping us through the transition process of moving to France. Would we use them if we had to do it over again? At the time we didn’t know what we didn’t know so my answer is yes. We still have some tasks to be done like the health insurance Carte Vital, Drivers license transfer and Taxes that they will help with.

They did help us with the visa application and bank application remotely from the states and purchase of the car when we got here. They also helped with finding our first Airbnb. EB is good at that, but at the time she was working and trying to coordinate it from the states would have been a little complicated. I’m a fan of FCHCB despite a couple of hiccups.

If you are thinking about moving to France there are a lot of “hand holders” to choose from. FCHCB is on the expensive side but offers a lot of support for just about every aspect of the move. You will want to do some research on this. Ask questions like how long have they been in business, do they guide you through the visa process. Can they help getting a French bank account and an address and health insurance. These are things required just to get your visa. You might need guidance on which visa is right for you. We applied for the Long-Term Visitor visa as we are retired and don’t plan on starting a business or working and we are not attending a university.

Check out Baguette Bound too. They were not in the business at the time we were researching this. I don’t know what their fees are or what services they actually provide. We like them and their attitude seems like they will guide you in a way that will keep expenses as low as possible.

Farewell to Duras

We started our new life in France in the village of Duras (population about 1200). What a stroke of luck to start in such a lovely and lively village. The Monday morning markets and seasonal Night Markets every Thursday got us acclimated to French culture and lifestyle in the countryside of the Lot-et-Garonne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France quickly. I feel that it was the perfect start for us.

Being close to the castle and surrounded by farms and vineyards is so beautiful and relaxing I really can’t describe it adequately. If you haven’t been yet, I hope that you can find a way to come see the French countryside for yourself.

While there are a lot of English speaking folks in the area, we did get to practice our French a little and maybe improved a fraction. Lucky for us, the French are super nice folks. The 3 months passed by so quickly.

I think EB and I did really well surviving life in the tiny AirBnB at #1 Place de la Resistance and we still love each other.

Thursday was absolutely beautiful. Sunny blue sky with some bright white clouds. We took advantage of the warm sunshine and walked into the town center and had lunch at Karls. A cheeseburger and fries (frites) and a glass of Rose. Life is good.

Our last day in Duras was Friday October 31, HOLLOWEEN! In Duras it is a great excuse to have a street party and what a great event.

Thursday’s picture just outside our front door in Duras.

And now to Saint Germain de Confolens

Castle ruins at St G de Confolens

We woke up to rain on Saturday morning, and it rained off and on for the drive to Saint Germain de Confolens. However, it is beautiful countryside, and overall, it was an uneventful drive. We arrived in St. G de Confolens a little early for our meet up with the gite hosts so we parked near the gite and walked over to Chez Naomi for lunch. It is a cozy cafe that you get to via some ancient stone stairs after walking through a very eclectic shop that is half brocante and half gift shop. The cafe serves a variety of hot-pressed sandwiches and salads and excellent coffee. We each had a ham and cheese sandwich and a salad. EB had a Coffee Americano and I had a Coffee au Lait with 2 sugars. Good stuff. The speak British English in this shop and cafe. I love the accent.

Rosie wanted to walk a little, so we walked over towards the Vienne River and found the Speak Easy which is a kind of tiki bar on the riverbank. Cash only and no Wi-Fi. It was closed. We didn’t realize that today is a national holiday in France. I will have to do some research as there seems to be a lot of holidays in France. Many more than the states.

I love this picture of the Vienne River right at the Speak Easy tiki bar. Leaves are turning color, falling and cover the ground. Not a big deal for you Northerners but for this city boy from the southern climes of the States this is a huge deal.

We met up with the hosts, Teadorina and Dave. We needed them to answer our questions regarding the heaters, washer and dryer, and the whole trash process. They sort recycles and trash and compost materials. It doesn’t all go on the same day either. It seems the city has recently changed the procedures, so Dave had to show us the detailed instructions. We will figure it out as we go.

The gite is a very nice and comfortable village house located on the Rue Grand. We enter from the street into a small foyer. A door on the left goes into the laundry room including a washer and dryer and a utility sink and a very large heating oil tank. FYI heating oil costs average about 54 euros per month in this gite.

A door on the right leads you to a garage in which the host has a Mercedes parked. It just fits. Back out into the foyer you head up a short flight of stairs to a landing then up about 10 stairs takes you to the landing and corridor. Turn to the right and you are in the salon or living room/dining/kitchen area. This is an inviting space. Back down the short corridor are 2 nice bedrooms on the left. Both have windows that open inward and you look out onto the street. Continuing down the corridor is a WC and then a small shower room. The living space is one level situated over the garage and laundry room.

A short drive of about 4.5 kilometers south on rue Grand gets you to Confolens proper. We drove over on Saturday night to the Aldis market. EB picked up some cheese and meats and some other stuff for dinners and lunches for the next couple of days.

On Sunday we took a short hike up to the old castle ruins. We were rewarded with some picturesque views. Here is one picture of the many that I took. More to come.

Picture above is of the Vienne River.

French Lifestyle and Culture

Figs

There are fig orchards around Duras, and I mentioned that there is a fig tree in the garden of the new house in Chabanais. It sparked a childhood memory, as I remember eating figs off of a tree in the neighborhood, but I couldn’t remember the details. That was close to 65-70 years ago. I googled how you eat figs and it all came back to me. You just pick them off of the tree and eat them. We opened them up and ate the insides. It turns out we were missing out on one of the best parts I guess, the skin.

It was when we lived on O’Farrell street in San Pedro, CA. I remember the tree was in the back yard of the neighbor’s house across the street. I’m looking forward to fitting this treat into our lifestyle once we move into the Chabanais house.

Daylight Savings Time

Yes, France has daylight savings time. We turned our clocks back last Sunday. Daylight Savings Time started in March and ended on October 26 this year. I think it ends in November in the States.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• We have started a long list of items we will need to purchase for the house. We are starting from scratch. This coming week we will continue to add to the list.
• Check out potential furniture stores available around Chabanais. EB has already started this, but it is time to get serious.
• Get online to research the solar power equipment and water boiler.
• Reality check and planning the logistics of the move to Chabanais. Not exactly sure when that will be, but most likely December some time.
• Follow up on our applications for our Carte Vital (health insurance cards)
• Still haven’t heard about our permanent car license plates. Follow up needed.

Weather for next week

Weather forecast for next week in Saint Germain de Confolens is cloudy and rainy with highs in the upper 50s and lows in the upper 40s and slight chance of rain all week.

I’m happy to see that hurricane Melissa looks like it will miss Florida. Not so good for Jamaica though. We have our fingers crossed for the folks on the islands.

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.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com