Mpprh Posted December 21, 2007 Share Posted December 21, 2007 It is that time of year again, and some of the contents of my newsletter could be interesting : The Languedoc Page newsletter, December 2007This is a newsletter from The Languedoc Page.You are receiving this because you have registered with The Languedoc Forum or requested it through The Languedoc Page. Wine :The wine market has continued to be difficult in Languedoc. The EU hasa master plan to reduce wine production and Languedoc would suffer morethan other areas from digging up vines. It is still under discussionand opposed by France, Spain and Italy.Inter Sud, the Languedoc Rousillon wine growers association, hasdeveloped a marketing plan to increase the perception of local wines.They envisage doubling the value of wine sold over 10 years, bothwithin France and the key export markets of Germany, Netherlands, UK,Canada, USA and Japan. They intend to develop “Sud de France” or “Southof France” as an umbrella brand.Meanwhile the militant wine growers association, CRAV, tookadvantage of the Presidential election by issuing a video threateningviolence if their demands were not met. There have been some terroristattacks on supermarkets, large wineries and wine importers. The 2007 harvest will be less than usual due to bad weather in otherwine growing areas. However there was little impact on Languedoc wineproduction.Weather : After a late Spring, the Summer was average for the region. Therewere no long hot spells this year. There was a week, or so, oftemperatures over 35C in August. The summer was dry, and the autumn did not provide the usual quantityof much needed rain. There has been no flooding so far this year.Current river levels are available here : www.vigicrues.ecologie.gouv.fr and risks by commune are now available here : www.prim.net/home.htm . Select Department, Then risk, then commune, then zoom in.Most of Languedoc (and Cote d’Azur, Provence, etc.) had snow on 15December. It melted within 24 hrs except at higher levels in the hills.Currently, we have clear skies, chilly nights and up to 15C during theday.Land transport: Lines 1 & 2 of the Montpellier tram system are now fully operational.Tram line 1 is intended to be extended with a new stop called CitéLudique near IKEA (and future Geant Hypermarket). However there is alsoa suggestion to extend a little further to create a station &parking on the A9 autoroute. Some work has been done in preparation forthis. Tram line 2 is intended to be extended East from St Jean de Vedas toFabrègues, Cournonterral et Cournonsec as well as Northwest toCastries. I haven't seen any dates for these developments. Tram line 3 was originally planned to go from Juvignac to Perols. Itwill now be launched in 2012 as Collines d'Estanove to Lattes. There isa longer term plan to extend the line from Lattes/Perols to run alongthe coast (but excluding Palavas) as far as Grande Motte. The colourscheme will use a coral reef theme.Tram line 4 initial studies were authorised for commencement inseptember 2007. One option that has been put forward is to extend tothe East from the end of the projected line 3. No proposal has yet beenmade.The topic is regularly updated here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=839The final links from the A75-A9 near Beziers are still not completed. The Montpellier CCI has published these dates :2008 (start) Pezenas - Valros section work starts 2008 (summer) Valros bypass opens 2008 (end) Valros to Beziers section opens 2009 (end) Pezenas - Valros section opens The connection of the TGV line from Nimes to Barcelona commenced in 2006. Current predictions are :2008 Nimes - Montpellier TGV line bypass surveying starts 2008 Public enquiry on Montpellier - Perpignan TGV line route 2009 Nimes - Montpellier TGV line bypass work starts 2009 Perpignan - Figueres TGV line in service 2011 Figueres - Girona - Barcelona TGV line in service* 2013 Nimes - Montpellier TGV line rail bypass opens 2020 Montpellier - Perpignan dedicated TGV line in service* It now seems that technical problems associated with the routeinto Barcelona will delay the Girona – Barcelona line until at least2012. The plan for an additional loop of the A9 South of Montpellier has been deferred. More fixed radar traps have been installed in the area during 2007. There is a map here : www.radarsfixes.com . Air transport : Once again, there will be new routes to Languedoc this year. As news becomes available, we will note it here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1758 and eventually update this page: www.the-languedoc-page.com/tourism/languedoc-tourism-air.htm . Some early news :Ryanair :Beziers-BristolGirona-BirminghamMarseille-BirminghamMarseille-EdinburghGirona-Manchester Marseille-ManchesterGirona-Newquay Rodez - DublinEurociel :Eurociel (a new operator for 2008 flying from Nimes) :April - OctoberNimes-AmsterdamNimes-BeirutNimes-LisbonNimes-MarakeshNimes-Nice-AthensNimes-PalmaNimes-RabatNimes-SevilleNimes-TunisJune-SeptemberNimes-AjaccioNimes-AmsterdamNimes-BastiaNimes-BeirutNimes-FezNimes-IbizaNimes-LisbonNimes-MarakeshNimes-Nice-AthensNimes-PalmaNimes-RabatNimes-SevilleNimes-Tuniswww.eurociel.net/telechargements/1014%20Eurociel%20Guide%20Horaires%20BD.pdfJet 2 :Avignon-Edinburgh Avignon- Leeds/Bradfordwww.jet2.com/Timetable.aspxGB Airways (BA franchisee Gatwick-Montpellier) have been taken over by Easyjet. They will run this route for summer 2008.A new airline based in Cardiff ( www.flyforbeans.com ) is shortly expected to announce 12 European routes.ADSL : Many cities have a choice of supplier for both phone and ADSL. Somealso have cable. Extending the service to villages has been rapid, andcurrently around 3% of visitors to The Languedoc Page still use dialup. To check the speed available from your phone and review the variousdeals on offer use this link : www.degrouptest.com .ADSL 2 (faster than ADSL) is now becoming available. Prices arereducing. In general ADSL is cheaper than dial up and, increasingly,some free phone calls are included in the deal.Property: 2007 has continued to be a relatively quiet year for property salesin Languedoc. Desirable houses continue to sell. Languedoc pricesremain attractive compared with those in Provence and Cote d'Azur.President Sarkozy's proposals have resulted in boosting the Parisian2nd home market. Swimming pools : Private pools should have met the new security laws by 1 January 2006.Many still don’t! Despite scare stories of government inspections, I amnot aware of any prosecutions. Health cover :The French government did an about turn regarding health cover for EU“early retirees”. Previously they paid a proportion of their incomeinto the government health system; the proposal was that they needed tobuy private health cover until retirement age. This was retrospective.The developments can be followed here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1957 . The government reviewed the situation and changed it’s position. Theeffect of the changes was that new arrivals must take private healthcover until they have either been in France for 5 years, or reachretirement age – existing contributors to the government system canremain in the system.Blogs :The number of South France residents blogging in English hassteadily increased. We maintain links to the more disciplined (andinteresting) bloggers here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/articles/languedoc-articles01d.htmElections :During 2007 Nicholas Sarkozy became the new centre right president ofFrance. He started dynamically and made several proposals that could bebeneficial to expat residents (or future expat residents). They aresummarised here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1919The local elections will be held in 2008. EU national who are residentare entitled to vote provided they register before 31/12/2007.The Languedoc Forum (Expat Foyer) : This forum was hosted by Aimoo until February 2006. It was then transferred to The Languedoc Page ( www.the-languedoc-page.com/forum) using phpbb software. Since then, 684 new members have registeredbringing the total up to 1384. The spammers continue to attempt toregister both manually and automatically. About 1 registration in 25 isgenuine and accepted. If you have registered and heard nothing from us,please email us directly. Around 5000 topics are being read per day.Only a small minority of readers contribute by posting. Aimoo seems to have had some problems, and the old forum vanished for awhile because I stopped paying the subscription this year. Currently,it continues as an archive here : http://forum1.aimoo.com/expatfoyer .The Languedoc Page : www.the-languedoc-page.comThere are now over 1500 pages of information excluding forum pages.There will be around 430,000 visitors in 2007 (2006 = 352,129),equivalent to about 1.5m pages read. The growth rate has slowed down atthe end of 2007, mainly because visitors were lost due to deletion ofAimoo, and pruning of the current forum reduced the content availablethrough the search engines.As mentioned in the last newsletter, we have expanded the property section www.the-languedoc-page.com/property/. Currently, we have around 2000 properties for sale listed throughIFP, private sales and local agents. This is excluding the freeproperty classifieds in the forum. We are looking at ways to expand thepresence of private sellers and local agents. We have developedcontacts with some local agents, and can help with advice if you arelooking to buy property in Languedoc.We used Villa renters to provide a searchable choice of villas torent in the South of France area in 2007. This continues here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/tourism/languedoc-travel-bookings-villas.htm The Languedoc Page ( http://the-languedoc-page.com) is a community driven website. Contributions from users have greatlyenhanced the photo section (now 440 images), restaurant reviews, andarticles (now over 170 articles). Together with the forum, this visitorparticipation has driven the expansion of The Languedoc Page.The Languedoc Page has been in the top three for the keyword“languedoc” on google.com and google.co.uk since November 2005. Googlehas 25m – 42m references for Languedoc.The advertising that was started early 2006 has progressed. Therates are remarkably reasonable given the visitor numbers. Moreinformation about advertising and statistics : www.the-languedoc-page.com/languedoc-advertising.htm . There will continue to be no pop-ups, porno or gambling ads ! We hope that you have found The Languedoc Page useful. If you haven’tvisited it for a while, it is worth a look to see how it has developed.And I’m still happy to receive article, photo and restaurant reviewcontributions ! Have a great 2008 Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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