Where would you live in France if you could choose?

[toddlerhip]

I am a SAHM of a 16mo and we suddenly have the chance to move to SW Europe. We would pick France, but where...?

In a hill village in Provence, commutable from Nice Airport.

In Alsace, so pretty with, BIZARRELY, a micro-climate similar to that of North Africa.

Colmar perhaps, or Molsheim? We did the wine route the same week Princess Di was killed, it was incredibly warm on those slopes, you are right Jane
I just like most French towns (Laon being a horrible exception )
Heck, I even like a lot about poor old Calais

Antibes, on the south coast. We went on holiday there last summer and it was glorious.

Actually, Marina i've just remembered (i tend to get a bit carried away!) - i'm not sure there will be a big enough airport near La Rochelle. I went to Strasbourg as a student for a few weeks to look for a summer job and agree it is beautiful! I have never heard of Saintes or St Lo - wonderful places to explore sometime. I feel I am definitely in the right place with so many knowledgeable people here!

Does anyone happen to know which are the busiest airports in France outside of Paris? We would need to get to Scotland (I think it's just Nice direct), Portugal, Spain and other cities in France.

Here, th - flightmapping.com - wonderful site, put your cursor on the airport you're interested in & it shows you the connections.

(Click on airport & it gives details of airlines as well. Mostly only the budget ones though)

Edinburgh flies to Avignon, Bergerac & Nice; Prestwick to Marseille; Glasgow to Nice.

Antibes is near Nice. Cheap flights.

Oh, it's only good for to/from UK/Ireland though, not the rest of Europe which is a shame.

airninja.com has flights from France to Spain - mostly Paris but ryanair (boo) and easyjet fly from Lyon, Toulouse or Marseille.

Oh dear, so many good ideas! I am not sure i want to live in Alsace. I lived in Germany for a long time and we went there quite a bit. It can be lovely weather, but my lasting memories are of very lovely, very damp places. I think i can't have been there long enough to appreciate the North Africa microclimate JABOSC! I am more inclined towards the south.

Antibes sounds lovely Lyra. We did a few days driving from Marseille to St Tropez one August. One night we stayed in a little hill village above St. T. It was lovely but the coastal strip in August wasn't huge fun. I think the thing must be to go inland. Haven't been to Antibes & maybe it's different out of season. Is it a place for mums of young children - as opposed to young mums ;) ?

Around Nice is a real possibility Quattrocento because as you say, there's the airport. I worked (for a week!) in a small village an hour north of Nice near the border and it was really lovely. Not sure about being there on my own though...

Just seen flightmapping. What a great find Wendy! Amazing how much the dreams start to be trimmed when reality bites. I'll have to investigate international flights for dh but I think it looks like Nice is the most realistic because of the direct flights to Scotland and it's probably quite a busy airport. And i was getting quite excited about the southwest...

Right, i have been standing here for 20 mins with a mop for the kitchen floor in one hand.

Look into Marseille as well, th - no idea what the schedules are like but it would give a little more westward flexibility...

We lived near La Rochelle for a year several years ago. Again in the summer it is a bustling, sunny little port with some nice shops and a great aquarium. It is very, very busy like St Ives in Cornwall. Again in the winter when the tourists leave it is pretty quiet, grey and wet. However there probably are some support networks there.

Saintes is in the Charente and again in the summer is gorgeous. There's an amazing roman amphitheatre, a lovely park to go to with small children and a smattering of nice shops. Again in the winter there's not much going on. It's probably a good compromise for city/ country living.

La Rochelle airport is tiny but there are flights to Stanstead and Liverpool now I think.
Bordeaux airport is only an hour and a half away from Saintes and La Rochelle. You can fly most places from Bordeaux.

Toddlerhip- Have you tried the Living France forum? There's people on there who can give you loads of information, about any aspect of living in France.

Bordeaux area. Has an airport, I have family there (well you did ask why!), it is a great city and is close to amazing beaches and beautiful countryside. Great food and wine too. Almost anything you consider typically French food wise comes from the Southwest regions. Mind you Bordeaux can be insufferable in the summer.

I am going to a dinner party in Saintes tomorrow evening - assuming ds1 is out of hospital (currently has suspected appendicitis). I have a friend who lives in Cognac who loves it there.

Personally, I love Bx. I yearn for a holiday home by the sea though, or a manse in le Gers to escape to when city life gets too hectic.

I think I would be bored stiff living in the Dordogne year round.

My (french) friends in Saintes tell me that there are now loads of english kids at their children's school and that the Charente is 'the new Dordogne'.

La Rochelle is lovely.

Marseilles has crime issues apparently - I know that you need a garage to park your car as it is risky parking in town.

Montpellier is great but too busy for me in summer - heaving.

Biarritz is divine - as is St Jean de Luz.

Toulouse is good too. Like Bordeaux but with livlier student feel at night.

Marseille is polluted and gridlocked as well as being quite a tough place. I'm still digging in my heels about moving there, though it has now become such a source of tension that it's totally ruining our lives and marriage
With fuel prices rising, the cheapo air companies may not be around in the foreseeable future, so I'd be wary of settling near an airport where you're relying on Ryanair, etc. Where does your DH need to be able to fly to?

I'd go for the S-W, too, near Toulouse, rather than the S-E where we live.

Thanks mimizan for the tips - had no idea Bordeaux airport was so near those places. Will checkout Living France..

I'm not very keen on Marseille. It was very hot & hectic and had quite a threatening feel about it when we visited for a day. I spent a week in Montpellier and quite liked it. The trams were fabulous.

Indith, do you mean Bordeaux can be insufferable because of the heat?

That is a very good point about the airlines AuldAlliance. Why would you prefer the SW?

dh needs to fly to France, Spain, Portugal and Italy apparently. And we need to be able to get back to Scotland easily. Just took ds to Portugal with connection in London & it was so awful we almost cancelled the holiday and drove back to Scotland from Heathrow. The idea of doing connecting flights every time we wanted to go home would make me rethink the whole thing. I'd rather fly direct to the US than do connections within Europe!

as an award winign travel writer i thinkt he eastern arronsdissmeents of Paris are the places to be.
no poncey mums and small shitty dogs.

in fact the Paris banlieue of Clichy-sous-Bois is really up and coming this season

Noooo, I didn't mean in Marseille; just within striking distance of the airport, which is 25km west of the city itself.

Distances to the airport:

Aix en Provence also 25km
Arles 65km
Avignon 75km
Montpelier 145km
Nimes 105km
Salon 35 km
Toulon 90km

and autoroutes everywhere. (You wouldn't want to live on top of the airport, would you? )

Ryanair fly from there to Prestwick & have just started a route to Edinburgh. They also fly to Madrid, Malaga & Oporto.

There are a lot of places in France that appeal to me but I've never spent any length of time in the country (never more than 3 weeks at a time) so hard to know what long-term every-day life would be like.

My cousin lives in ALsace and has a very pleasant life. She is a GP, has a nice house, seems happy with the dc's schools, hasn't had any problem settling in but she spoke French very fluently before she moved there and originally she moved with her dh (now divorced) who is French, so that must have helped in the beginning.

I quite like Alsace too - went there a lot as a teenager and now have Alsatian partner with lots of friends from the Strasbourg area.

But it is very different to what we tend to think of as France.

laz,weve just got back from there-soo peaceful!!!!

I'd prefer the SW because it's cheaper, greener (not in ecological terms, in terms of the landscape: I'm not a fan of the scrubby brushland round Aix and Marseille) and the influence of mafioso types is less obvious. The gouaille marseillaise macho attitude in this part of the country is a bit wearing. Around Marseille, Aix, Avignon and down the Rhône valley the air is really polluted. Ozone alerts every summer, which motorists blithely ignore except me and the German tourists!

The SW has gorgeous countryside, nice towns and it's easy to get to sea, mountains, etc. Toulouse is a great town, and the surrounding area is lovely. Nice grub, too
Also because I have friends and family-in-law there, perhaps.
Bordeaux sounds great, from what ggg says, I've not been there for years and it's really changed with the UNESCO heritage status.
Dordogne a bit middle of nowhere-ish, good for a holiday but not for everyday life. A bit full of Brits, too.
Am I the only person who thinks that organising life around the continued existence of cheap air travel is unrealistic? (and why are the italics not working? )