What is it about France?

For me, it was the lure of the snow-covered Alps. What was it for you? The language? The gastronomy? The lifestyle? Once I was lured here, I discovered all these things and more, and now I find myself unable to leave. Holidays previously spent abroad are now spent discovering different regions of France. And what better way to see areas of France than from a convertible?

My first road trip centred on Normandy. First up was the Bayeaux. Strangely, the French don’t seem all that aware of the tapestry, and perhaps this is why Bayeaux remains a rather small town in the North. After having to learn about it at school in Australia, I was determined to see this thing for myself. Unfortunately, even photos without a flash are not allowed, so after waling around the entire glassed-off tapestry, I headed along the coastal road towards le Mont Saint Michel. War museums and bunkers are abundant along this slower road, and they provide good opportunities to stop and smell the salty air. Le Mont Saint Michel boasts the biggest tides in Europe. Accommodation is available both on and off the island, and both have advantages. I spent a night overlooking a part of the island that floods at the highest of tides, then a night off the island, walking up to the causeway that joins it to the mainland to see how lovely the island looks at night. This place is well worth a visit, with no cars beyond the causeway and narrow streets winding up to a monastery at the top.

Another road trip took me from my home in La Clusaz to Nice. The mountainous roads around Briançon provide a great top-down experience, especially for passengers who don’t have to concentrate. The route took me through a town called ‘Bonnuit’ (’good night’) and though Barcelonnette, which leads to the Cime de la Bonette. The narrow but freshly resurfaced and empty roads were breathtaking and the French are rumoured to have added an extra loop of road at the top to make the route an extra 50 metres higher in order to claim the title for the highest road in Europe at 2802 metres high. I really recommend this road — part of the Route Napoleon — for the natural views. Beware of clouds that act as thick fog. Just beyond the peak was an old army barracks, now turning to rubble, complete with cartoon murals inside. On the way back, I stopped in Digne-les-Bains and passed an amazingly blue lake, with lots of people dotted around swimming. If I had to move away from La Clusaz, this place would be on my list of alternatives.

On a summer road trip to the West coast, I stopped along the Dordogne — a popular tourist spot for Brits and the Dutch as well as the French. It’s easy to see why so many are attracted to this region. The weather is stable (unlike my mountains) and there is so much to see. Sarlat-la-Canéda stands out as a town full of activity throughout the day and into the night, with street performers, an open-air theatre, all sorts of restaurants and really narrow, pretty alleyways in the largely pedestrianised town. The town had a great relaxed feeling about it, and it’s also on the list of places to live if I ever leave La Clusaz. It’s also close to lots of great sites, such as the ancient cave paintings of Lascaux, the once-inhabited limestone cliff-faces such as La Roque Saint Christophe, a variety of castles and the beautifully sculpted Marqueyssac gardens. Slightly further away is the Gouffre de Padirac, an amazing underground cave complete with a Venetian-style boat ride and impressive scenery. Remember to ‘ooh’ at the first-ever plant life seen in the cave — from a seed that our guide said washed down and somehow germinated under one of the security lights. Along the coast, the still-French La Palmyre has big camping grounds and long beaches for surfing, without the crowds of more popular places like Biarritz. For me, the town felt a lot like a surf stop along the Victorian coast of Australia, with calm roads, unspoilt beaches and beachwear being the norm. Further down the coast, the Dune du Pilat, Europe’s largest dune, is a paragliding haven. Climbing the dune purely to get to the beach seemed to me like more effort than it was worth when the coastal town of Pyla-sur-Mer offers a beach on its doorstep. Obviously, it’s a bit busier, but on a hot day, who has the energy to conquer a huge sand dune? The drive home was a fast one, with the roof down at 130km/h on the toll roads, and still no relief from the heat. Lunch was a picnic under the gigantic Millau Bridge which is so high that I’m not sure I could drive over it.

My most recent road trip was not in a convertible. After driving my little Golf GTI cabriolet, the ex-La Poste van just didn’t have the same appeal. There were certainly less security hassles, but the roads just weren’t as much fun. Thankfully, visits to some bunkers in the North (La Coupole and Blockhaus d’ Eperlerques) made up for the boredom of driving a yellow thing with a big bubble dome and no power. After a night of rest in Reims, a city with a name that no non-French person can ever really pronounce and a lovely cathedral with a smiling angel, the road to the Jura ranges was hot and long. The reward was a stunning view of Geneva and Lac Léman on the descent towards La Clusaz, along with a much-needed cool breeze from the lake.

This summer, I’ll be back in the Golf for more top-down adventures.

April Hollands

Buying property abroad can be more than a little daunting. As long as you do everything by the book and stay organised, things should go according to plan.

But that still doesn’t make the decision any less scary! Especially if you don’t know where to start! So we’re going to help you.

Tell us in the poll what it is that worries you most about buying a home abroad.

We’ll then write some posts to help you with the areas that worry you the most. Hopefully we’ll give you enough information and inspiration to turn your dream into a reality.

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Pic: Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses
Ulysses & Us, Amazon

Yesterday (June 16th), as lovers of Guinness and gorgonzola sandwiches no doubt know, was Bloomsday – the day that James Joyce set his vast, rambling, fiercely erudite and often hilariously funny novel Ulysses.

“I want,” he famously said, “to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book”.

Only an exile who had absconded to Europe with a girl from Galway (Joyce’s first romantic liaison with Nora Barnacle took place on June 16th 1904) could conceive of such a wildly ambitious act of imaginative reconstruction.

So here, in celebration of the old artificer, we give you properties from Dublin, Galway, and Zurich.

Will you buy one? Yes, yes, I will …

Dalkey

Dalkey crops up in chapter 2 of Ulysses, and in recent years it’s become quite the celebrity haunt – Neil Jordan, Maeve Binchy, Enya, and Eddie Irvine have all lived here.

It’s not just the Joyce connection that brings them to Dalkey, it’s also the lovely seaside location and the impressively large properties with views over Dublin Bay. Even the presence of Bono has failed to put a dent in prices.

If you happen to have £9.7m handy, this rather wonderful castellated house is yours for the taking – rather more impressive than a Martello tower, though if towers are your thing, it does have a bedroom in the turret.

Feel free to emerge from the stairhead intoning ‘Introibo ad altare Dei’.

Galway

Nora Barnacle, Joyce’s great love, came from Connemara in Galway, though she certainly didn’t grow up in anything as grand as this five-bed lodge house in Costello (POA).

It sits in ten acres and overlooks the Fermoyle Lakes, the Twelve Pins and the Maamturk Mountains – and take it from me, these are worth looking over.

If you’re feeling especially morbid, head down the road to Oughterard – it’s here that Michael Furey, the doomed lover of Greta Conroy in Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, is supposed to be buried (he’s not here, mind, because he’s a fictional character).

Zurich

Joyce and Nora lived in Zurich, and a good part of Ulysses was written here. Joyce’s daughter Lucia later ended up in an asylum in nearby Lausanne – “she started to show signs of mental illness in 1930, around the time she began casually dating Samuel Beckett,” as Wikipedia interestingly explains it.

Lausanne seems to have a bit of a track record with literary breakdowns – it was here that TS Eliot, laid up in a hospital following a nervous collapse, wrote the first draft of The Wasteland, a cheery little poem published in 1922, the same year as Ulysses.

Must have been something in the water.

In any case, if you have £11,300,000 to spare and need a spacious place in which to go mad, or compose a great literary masterpiece, or both, this might be the one for you: it has so many bedrooms the agent got tired counting them – 15-20! – and it’s surrounded by 75 acres.

Ever wondered what a finca was? You may well have come across the term when searching for property in Spain.

The nearest translated word is ‘farm’, but the term is used quite loosely to describe various rural properties with land and outbuildings. In fact, a finca can be anything from a tiny rural farm to a massive country estate.

What lies at the heart of the word finca, though, is the rural element, as the majority of fincas are located in the countryside.

If a property in the Spanish countryside is up your street, and you fancy owning some land too, then a finca may be the ideal type of property to go for.

There was a time when it was extremely easy to find an abundance of old or ruined fincas at dirt cheap prices. Not surprisingly, most of these bargains have been long since snapped up, although it’s still occasionally possible to find a property in need of renovation for a reasonable price.

Some  ruined fincas look beyond repair, but for inspiration check out the blog of this couple who set about the demanding task of restoring one in Andalucia.

If buying a ruin isn’t your thing, there are plenty of fincas for sale across Spain that are in a good state and suitable to move straight into. What’s more, some of the fincas have already been renovated and refurbished, saving you the time and effort.

Where properties are described as being ‘finca-style’, they’re unlikely to be a true, old finca. Instead, these are usually brand new properties that have been built to mimic the look and feel of an old finca.

Mountain views

If you’re looking for a large finca, then this five-bedroom renovated and extended finca could be ideal.

It’s located between Petra and Sineu, with views over the Tramuntana Mountains and the east coast, and has a separate guest house in the extension – great for having people to stay or to use for bed and breakfast accommodation.

It’s priced at £715,785.

Coastal village

This five-bedroom, old country finca is located close to the village of Campos and near the fishing town of Colonia Sant Jordi.

It’s accessed via a country road and has heaps of traditional features, such as old wooden doors, exposed beams and original tiled floors.

It’s priced at £589,470.

Andalucian acres

In Andalucia is a massive seven-bedroom, six bathroom finca set in rolling farmland and surrounded by mountains.

It comes with lots of barns and outbuildings, which could be converted to form further accommodation, a small wood, a pool and 12 acres of land.

It’s priced at £385,453.

Albatera

This finca in Albatera is a classic example of how deceptive your first view can be.

It looks small on the outside, but actually has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a large lounge (with Chiminea) and a fantastic private pool area.

There’s also a large BBQ and outdoor kitchen area, utility rooms and even a lit up cacti garden!

It’s priced at £265,262.

According to a recent survey, 200,000 Brits are upping and leaving Blighty for life in France. Apparently the lifestyle is much better over there.

So what’s so good? You mean aside from the food, the countryside, the wine, the sunshine (expect in Paris, I hear it rains there).

It does sound like it would be fun to live there. Enough to get me out of England? Quite possibly. I’m just not sure where I’d want to move to.

So here’s a little poll. If you could live anywhere in France, where would you choose?

With the increasing awareness of the impact our lifestyles and habits can have on the environment, it’s no wonder more homes and new developments are taking eco issues into consideration.

From solar panels, green energy and sustainable building products, to rainwater harvesting and eco toilets, there are many ways in which homes can be built in eco-friendly ways.

If environmentally friendly property issues are high on your agenda for an international home purchase, be it a holiday home, second home or somewhere to move to permanently, then there are properties up for sale that meet these requirements. Here are a few to whet your appetite.

France

A brand new off-plan chalet that will be ready at the end of 2009, is up for sale in the Les Freney area of Courchevel in the French Alps.

Located in the first eco-development in Courchevel, it consists of six bedrooms, four bathrooms and space for parking two vehicles.

It’s priced at £957,660.

If that’s a bit out of your budget, then a four-bedroom, two bathroom property in the same development costs £618,126.

Cape Verde

If island living floats your boat, then you could become the proud owner of an eco-friendly apartment in Porto Sal, on Sal Island in Cape Verde.

It’s part of a larger development which has been built in a green way, with a low construction index, environmentally sound design, plenty of green areas and waste water recycling for irrigation.

The apartment is priced at £58,843.

Italy

A three-bedroom, two bathroom eco-friendly apartment in Rapallo, near Portofino, is on the market for £487,536.

Part of a new development of only ten properties, this apartment is located on the first floor and has an open-plan kitchen and lounge and private garden.

On the eco front, the bonus is that the apartment has solar powered hot water, in order to help conserve energy usage.

Outside there are olive groves and fruit orchards, plus golfing and yachting nearby.