Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The truth is, it was a good thing that we weren't working on this together. Having pre-
viously suffered the effects of attempted teamwork, I knew that any joint approach would
very quickly end in heated debate and very little else. So I rolled up my sleeves and got
stuck in. With the majority of my career years spent in Personnel, where research and com-
munication were essentials, I was convinced it would be the simplest undertaking in the
world.
A key problem when first buying property abroad is that one often does so from a base
of relative ignorance. It's a completely different kettle of fish from buying in your native
country, where all the information is at your fingertips.
Aspects such as the social status of the area, its weather patterns, services and other
amenities, are already known or easily ascertained. One may happily take the estate agent's
assurances that the location, for example, benefits from a superb micro-climate, with the
pinch of salt it deserves. In short one is aware of being hoodwinked and when one is not.
So there I was, in our Midlands home, staring at the Internet and trying to choose prop-
erties in France. It was during a soaking wet autumn and I, like the weather, quickly star-
ted to flounder. Although we'd spent many holidays in France we didn't have anywhere
near the experience needed to make decisions of this magnitude. Jack's cynical warnings
returned to haunt me and I dithered around for ages, scanning innumerable websites until,
overwhelmed, I gave up. There was nothing else for it; I'd need a local French person to
help; someone 'on the ground'. And despite Jack's warnings that it would end in tears, it
obviously had to be an estate agent.
In preparation for my first encounter with one of those untrustworthy souls, I decided
to gen up a bit. There would be nothing too intellectual at this stage, just a smattering so at
least I could recognise the different parts of the country when they were being described.
To do this I resumed my website surfing sessions and examined various tourist books that
were lying around the house.
I began with an overview of the bureaucratic structure, which proved to be an early
eye-opener. I hadn't realised that Metropolitan (mainland) France is divided administrat-
ively into 22 regions; Provence, for example, being one.
Regions are the principal territorial units of France and are run with an impressively
complex multi-tiered system of local administration. This seems to have been designed
with maximum incomprehensibility in mind, leading to various local interpretations and
much confusion, or
flexibilité
, as it is known in French. It was this
flexibilité
that would
frequently trouble us later.
Local regional officials have extensive powers over the management of transport, in-
frastructure, economic development, tourism and education. Next down in size from re-
gions come the administrative departments of which there are 94, numbered 1 to 95. There
is no department 20 (heaven knows why), but the former department 20 is now departments
