Greetings From France

Welcome to the 28th post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

We finally made it and we are starting our first week of full time living in France as of 1 August 2025.

If this is your first visit to our blog, I hope that we 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. Starting a new chapter in our life in the French countryside. If you like the blog, subscribe. It is free to subscribe and there are no advertisements.

As we shared our 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.

The whole planning and then getting to France has been an amazing experience. Once the ball was rolling the move happened really quickly. We started talking about it in May 2024. We got serious in December 2024 and here we are at the beginning of August 2025 living in France. Now that we are here, we want to share all of the things we are learning as we settle into our new life.

Someone asked us what we are going to do in France. I’m wondering where we will find the time to do all of the things that we want to do. We also have to get used to the idea of slowing our life down.

As I hit my late 70s, I start thinking that my days are numbered so how do I fill the rest of our life with worthwhile things to keep ourselves fulfilled and start each day with a bit of spirit. Our answer: Move to France!

Finish up this week

Monday:

Picked up our rental car. We will drop it off at Miami airport on Thursday at the very convenient rental return area in the airport parking garage.

Transfer title of the VW to Landon’s mom. Landon has graduated from high school, and EB had asked his dad if he thought Landon might be interested in the car. All worked out and so win win. We met at the DMV office and in no time all the paperwork was done, and the car is Landon’s. Drive it safely Landon!!

We went by John and Denise’s house to pick up mail that didn’t get forwarded. I have no clue why it didn’t get forwarded. We saw Jennifer as we were driving out of Grand Palm. It was good to say goodbye and asked her to tell Corey and Charley that we said bye. We will miss them and Corey’s mom and dad too.

Tuesday:

DHL picked up our boxes. Hopefully everything will arrive safely in France. The first box the guy took out to his truck was about 50 pounds. I can’t believe that he didn’t have a dolly. We got 5 boxes loaded in the DHL van. Next time we see them (I hope) is in Duras, France early next week.

Hard to believe that we packed our life in 5 boxes. Truth is, we didn’t pack up our life in 5 boxes. We had to leave a lot of “stuff” also family and dear friends behind that mean a lot to us. So, what we packed is the start of the rest of our lives. New stuff and new memories to be accumulated starts now. But hoping to NOT to accumulate a lot of stuff.

Also on Monday, I picked up an updated prescription script from my doctor’s (GP) office. I shouldn’t have any problems at customs now. I know, “famous last words.” Right?

EB is meeting an old friend for a late lunch. She will be home in time for our zoom call with Cindy, Don, Dan and Rhonda. We had some technical difficulty but ended up figuring it out and had a nice talk with the family.

Wednesday:

Great news! Rosie’s USDA certification paperwork is done, and she is good to go. Our local vet called and let us know that the documents are in. We could have had the docs sent to our North Port address, but wanted the docs returned to the vet. Bright Cross veterinarian clinic is convenient in Venice and really has done a great job with Rosie. Very good staff and doctors. I hope we get lucky in France and find a vet that we like as much as we like Bright Cross.

We will be doing our final packing, and cleanup of the VRBO. I vote for dinner out. We will end up with 3 suitcases and our back packs.

Thursday and Friday:

We woke up early on Thursday (6:30) and did a load of laundry and another quick wipe down of the VRBO.

These are travel days. A 3-hour drive Thursday morning to arrive at the airport in plenty of time to turn in the rental car and get our bags checked in and get through security. Oh, and don’t forget to take Rosie for a walk BEFORE going into the baggage check area. I hate Miami traffic. I really hate it. We had to show Rosie’s paperwork to the agent when we checked our bags. Rosie cost $100 and one bag was overweight: $100.

We got through security without any drama. EB had to go through a special screener because of her hip replacement. Otherwise, no problem. We grabbed a beer and shared a cheeseburger and went over to our boarding gate to wait. While we waited for boarding Rosie was starting to get a little antsy. EB had stashed some Pupperoni in Rosie’s carrier, so we stuffed a quarter of a tablet of Trasadone into a small chunk of Pupperoni and EB was able to get Rosie to swallow the pill. Next step, cross our fingers. She started to settle down during our short wait for boarding. We all then settle in for a 9-hour flight to Paris. We were super excited to be airborne. EB watched some movies. I read a little of my book on French history and tried to sleep. We didn’t need to worry about Rosie. Rosie did great!!!!

We landed, Friday morning around 7:10AM, and went through customs. I’m not sure why, but we got shuttled to a shorter line. EB was carrying Rosie in the carrier had Rosie’s papers all ready for customs. We were waiting for our baggage at carousel 41 (Charles de Gaulle airport is huge) it was taking a little while, so I suggested that EB take Rose outside. She says, “What about customs?” I said, “That was it.” She says, “That was it???” We both laughed at how easy it is. EB grabbed a cart for our luggage, and I stacked the 3 suitcases and our back packs on it. We got through customs without needing to show Rosie’s papers or anything about our prescriptions.

After all of the planning regarding a French phone system and purchasing the Orange telecom tourist eSim we still needed to stop at the Orange Telecom kiosk in the airport in Paris. There was a kiosk near our baggage carousel. No wonder we couldn’t get the eSims to work. We had purchased data only versions, but we needed data AND cellular. No problem, we just needed to buy 2 new eSims and cancel the incorrect eSims. No refund either. “Best laid plans”, right? The young man at the Orange kiosk was very helpful and had us set up very quickly. Thank God for the younger, tech savvy generation!

Once the phones were set up, I called the rental car agency, and they told us to wait at door 16a, a white shuttle minivan will be there shortly. EB asked a staff person which way to door 16a. The lady said that she didn’t know of a door 16a. Uh, what? EB is looking at me like I have a hole in my head. I’m going, the guy said door 16a. We had been in a similar situation at CDG before. What you do is, you go to another person and sure enough we found someone that directed us to door16a. We worked our way to door 16a. OMG what a cluster. I’m serious, there is this huge cluster of black minivans waiting to pick people up. It seemed like a 100 of them. Many were parked in somewhat an orderly fashion. Many others were not so orderly. We are looking for a white minivan, should be easy. Not. We decided to wait closer to the door and figured the driver will find us. He did, I’m not sure how. I guess he looked for the guy with the deer in the head lights look and said are you Mr. Beiley? He helped load our bags into the van and we waited a short time for another passenger. Ten minutes later we are at the rental agent office which is off of the airport property. Another 10 minutes or so and we are loaded in the car. It is a new Renault Clio Aspen sport with automatic transmission and just enough room for our stuff. It is pretty sporty actually. After a month I will be able to give our full opinion.

Our 6 hour drive turned out to be about 7 hours between traffic in and around Paris and some hit and miss rain showers. We stopped for gas and a snack and gave Rosie a break. Did I tell you that I hate Miami traffic? Ditto times a hundred for Paris. Once out of Paris the drive was lovely.

We got to our Airbnb in Duras a little after 6:00PM. Our Airbnb hostess was there waiting for us when we arrived. She settled us in and was on her way. EB took Rosie for a walk and met a couple from California that have just moved to Duras about a year ago.

It was beautiful out, so we walked into the town square and found a bar with tables outside and a pretty lively crowd of Brits hanging out. Just across the cobble stone street is a food trailer making fresh pizzas in the shade of an old stone building. I ordered a pepperoni pizza while EB ordered us a couple of Leffe beers. The lady told me that the pizza would take a little time. She agreed with me that it might be 2 beers worth of time. We drank our beer slowly and ordered a small carafe of red wine and just about then our pizza was ready. We shared a small pizza that was really good and enjoyed the cool breeze as we sipped our wine under the umbrellas at a table for two. It is magical.

Saturday and Sunday:

We slept in late on Saturday morning and after our showers were ready to head to the Saturday Fresh market. I was wrong the Saturday Fresh Market is actually on Monday. First mistake I have ever made. There are small towns all around that have these markets through the week, so if you miss your town’s market, you can hit the one the next day’s market in another town.

Thats okay we did a little walk around and made our way over to the Chateau. Decided to do the tour another day. Right across the street was a creperie that was calling our names. What a treat! I should have taken a picture. Next time. The crepes were delicious, and the wine was just right. A cup of expresso was the perfect finishing touch. The view was of the farmlands below. Duras is situated on the top of a hill, so it overlooks farms growing corn and sun flowers among other things. There are vineyards as well and a wine that has its own appelation in Duras.

We walked around and located the Post Office. I will need that Monday morning to arrange for a PO Box. We did stop in at the Tourist Office and picked up a guidebook.

We dropped Rosie off at the town house and walked to the grocery store. We bought some meat and cheese for our evening charcuterie board and some wine. We sorted out the groceries and set up the little table outside our front door and lit a candle, had a bottle of wine and our charcuterie board for dinner. We had some people stop to say hi and meet Rosie. I think that the town house next to us is being refurbished and the guy doing the work was there with his dog. Very friendly dog.

On Sunday we decided to go to Marmande, the bigger town about 12 miles away from Duras. The town itself did not do much for us, but it has a train station and a large medical center. Those are two important things. We decided to scout out around the area and found the little town of Castlenau-sur-Gupie up on a hill on a narrow and winding road. EB will have to check me on the spelling, I’m pretty sure that I messed it up (yes, he did, so I fixed both town spellings before sending out the blog). We parked in a square that just happened to have a small pub on one end. We walked around the town and then went back to the pub. They were okay with Rosie going in the pub. The tables outside were occupied, but that’s okay the staff took good care of us and were patient with our attempt to speak French. We each had 2 beers. Total bill 8 euros. Our kind of place. I talked to the staff a little (they speak better English than I speak French) and they asked us to come back on Monday for the “night market” for food and wine and music. We might take them up on the invite.

We got back to Duras and as we drove through town, we saw the ice cream shop and decided to try it. Good idea!

Next project, laundry. The clothes washer is mini sized for starters. It took us several minutes to get it to start washing, I hope we can do it again. Well, it finished washing and I started to take the clothes out to put them on the drying rack. They were soaking wet. That’s not going to work. I finally got the spin cycle to work. Another few minutes and not sure how I got it to work, but it did start spinning. Dryers are not a thing in France, so you wash then hang the clothes on a clothes line or lay them on a drying rack. There are no clothes lines at this townhouse, so it is the drying rack. Cindy and Don will remember the drying rack issue from our stay in Amboise last year. EB is thinking it will be quicker and easier to take the load of laundry to the laundromat that is just down the hill and a short distance from our rental.

French Lifestyle and Culture

So far everything has been pretty smooth for us. As I have mentioned before, we have watched a ton of You Tube videos as we have been gathering information and tips on the whole moving and integrating process. Mixed in with all of that info has been many tidbits of information about cultural differences to be ready for once you arrive in France. One of the most often mentioned tidbits is to pack a truck load of patience because customer service is way different from what we expect in the US. What we expect to take a day, takes a week and what we expect to take a week, takes a month. It will happen; it just takes time. Same thing at administration offices. One should consider waiting in line as an opportunity to meet people and practice the French language. Take your phone fully charged up and loaded with google translate. We haven’t really experienced this issue ourselves, but we have really just arrived. We will be ready for slow customer service just the same and share the experience as it comes.

I must say that all of the people that we have met have been very friendly and helpful. We understand that in the French culture it takes time for French folks to warm up to newcomers so no rush in making friends. We will just keep going out and being accessible.

Next week

On Monday we have to get our PO Box. (Boite de post).

We definitely will go to the Fresh Market on Monday morning. EB wants to buy some fresh veggies and fresh baguettes.

We need to start looking at options for a potential car purchase. Our rental expires at the end of August. We will get help from French Connections with this, but we need to be test driving cars to make sure which ones we like the most. We will especially need help with the French documents involved in a car purchase and with the car insurance.

In Duras, we will visit the Hotel de Ville (city hall) to check out upcoming events and if there is a French language class in town. Most towns have all kinds of events during the summer. Especially in August.

We want to find a place where we can take French language lessons and learn about French culture and history. It will be important to find a teacher that speaks English.

We are expecting our boxes shipped from North Port to arrive on Monday too.

On Wednesday we have an appointment in Toulouse at 11:00. We will do a little exploring around Toulouse too. We will drive to Toulouse to get our new bank cards and check out the ancient city of Toulouse. It was founded by the Romans in the 5th century. It is a big city (population over 500,000 and metro area has a population of 1.5 million). It has an important university and the headquarters of Airbus Aerospace engineering and manufacturing facility and other tech companies. It is an ancient city, but also modern. It is about a 2-hour drive from Duras. Yes, there are bank branches closer to Duras, but I want to make the drive to Toulouse anyway. You can see the Pyrenees mountains that are about 80 kilometers (roughly 50 miles) from the city. I will tell you more about Toulouse next week.

We also need to set up appointments for Rosie at the vet and we need to see about validating our passports. The validation starts the clock for our health insurance. After 90 days we will be eligible to sign up for the health care system.

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.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com