dormer

For many years my husband and I used to zip down the A6 enroute to the Alps or further South and whenever we stopped at Beaune either overnight or at the services I would say "there's a whole world in there waitng to be explored". By default one year we had to take a holiday and I decided that was the year to explore. I couldn't find anything on the area to the South and West of Beaune except for a small ad in the Sunday Times. We had the most perfect family holiday cycling/swimming/wine tasting in Burgundy courtesy of a delightful English family and their very pretty gite near Nolay. A couple of years later we went back and on a whim one evening visited a nearby (preferred) village and found a lovely house to buy. It is situated in a village just to the South of Santenay amidst the vineyards. Although there are lots of French holiday homes in the area to my knowledge we are the only "Anglais" there. We spend most of the summer in the region with our young children and to the South of Beaune we can usually count the number of Brit cars on two hands. Having said all that we have come across other home owners (such as the people whose house we rented in the first place) but the thing about Dept 71/21 is the fact that it is so unattractive commercially to the English Pocket. You won't find ruined farmhouses at dirt cheap rates. Our particular notaire in Beaune was extremely surprised when as Brits we were buying a very modest 2 bed village house. The upside of this is that we have fantastic French neighbours who positively glow when we arrive with our three very noisy children. One even asked if we lived in an appartment because our children were so 'wild'. Our French has improved beyond belief since none of our neighbours claim to speak any English ( although at critical moments they all recall that they did learn some at school). And this coming summer we will take our new family pet there for the first time. We love Burgundy, yes we would live there but it is not a replacement for England (and home). Fundamentally our culture and longstanding ties/traditions are here. When we go to Burgundy we encompass all things French whilst we are in a foreign country as guests.

For many years my husband and I used to zip down the A6 enroute to the Alps or further South and whenever we stopped at Beaune either overnight or at the services I would say "there's a whole world in there waitng to be explored". By default one year we had to take a holiday and I decided that was the year to explore. I couldn't find anything on the area to the South and West of Beaune except for a small ad in the Sunday Times. We had the most perfect family holiday cycling/swimming/wine tasting in Burgundy courtesy of a delightful English family and their very pretty gite near Nolay. A couple of years later we went back and on a whim one evening visited a nearby (preferred) village and found a lovely house to buy. It is situated in a village just to the South of Santenay amidst the vineyards. Although there are lots of French holiday homes in the area to my knowledge we are the only "Anglais" there. We spend most of the summer in the region with our young children and to the South of Beaune we can usually count the number of Brit cars on two hands. Having said all that we have come across other home owners (such as the people whose house we rented in the first place) but the thing about Dept 71/21 is the fact that it is so unattractive commercially to the English Pocket. You won't find ruined farmhouses at dirt cheap rates. Our particular notaire in Beaune was extremely surprised when as Brits we were buying a very modest 2 bed village house. The upside of this is that we have fantastic French neighbours who positively glow when we arrive with our three very noisy children. One even asked if we lived in an appartment because our children were so 'wild'. Our French has improved beyond belief since none of our neighbours claim to speak any English ( although at critical moments they all recall that they did learn some at school). And this coming summer we will take our new family pet there for the first time. We love Burgundy, yes we would live there but it is not a replacement for England (and home). Fundamentally our culture and longstanding ties/traditions are here. When we go to Burgundy we encompass all things French whilst we are in a foreign country as guests.