To a village without these 5 things

Bonjour, est-ce que vous savez qu'il existe "mondial Relay" qui est bien plus efficace que la poste ? pour envoyer ou recevoir des colis.

Be careful not to idealize too much:

– where are you going to work? Is there fast internet access (fiber optics?) for distant work. There's little work in these regions apart from agriculture, construction and personal and medical services.

– Are you less than 30 minutes from a hospital and doctors (dentists, specialists)?

– have access to a supermarket or two within 15 minutes by car, otherwise life will quickly become expensive for you.

Other things that make a village/town/small city great (that you could cover): walkability, acceptance of foreigners (esp. retirees), tolerance (hey, maybe even embracing of LGBT folk), transit–for those of us who don't want/have a car. 🙂 Thanks for this video!

In a pharmacie, you can also bring any mushrooms you pick and they will tell you if it's edible or not.

I totally agree with you on all the points. I would also add an ATM. Despite having a post office in our town hall, there's no ATM which means I have to drive to the next town over if I need cash. There was an epicerie when we moved from Biarritz to Saubrigues 3 years ago but it closed. So again – we have to drive 7 km to get groceries. On the bright side though, there's a restaurant, bakery, small library and a concert hall with shows. I can also walk to my weekly yoga class held inside the concert hall.😊

8:35 Pronouncing it Le Post and then putting the title in La Poste (sounds like cost)

It's not the case that most villages will have a mairie. There will only be one mairie per commune and the size of the commune is indeterminate. My commune has 26 hamlets – 50 to 200 people except for the chef-lieu ( village where the mairie is located ) which has about 700.

"Mairie" is not pronounced like "Marie".

Are you living in Eymet or close by. We have moved to Lauzun which has everything you state plus bank, coiffure, Boucherie and much much more. We are very happy with our choices. Love your your YouTube sessions…

My local pharmacy also dies annual flu vaccinations and Covid boosters. They now also offer online medical consultations.

Interesting to compare this with the tiny rural Cotswold town (population about 3,300) I moved to 8 years ago here in England, as I had a checklist too. Some cross-over, some do not.

1) public transport. We are very lucky as we have two bus services and a train station. Not super frequent, but amazingly useful. I would say that is very useful in any European country.
2) a grocery store, which in our case is a down-sized supermarket, not dissimilar to the French one. It also doubles as a Post Office (there used to be a separate business, but they are closing at a high rate). It is also where a lot of government type bureaucracy can be done, but in the UK online rules for that sort of thing.
3) a medical practice in town (and a pharmacy)
4) a pub and places to eat. We are incredibly lucky that way, with a bistro, gastropub, two traditional pubs, a hotel/restaurant and a deli/cafe. Pubs are closing at an alarming rate, but they are often the centre of social life, although maybe a generational thing.
5) societies and meeting places with events. We are very lucky, with lots of volunteer groups, meeting hall, sports centre not to forget an annual street fair, beer festival and free music festival.
6) not important for me, but it will be for many, and that is a walkable school up to primary level (up to 11 in the UK). At high school level, then kids are a lot more independent and can uses buses, cycle and so on but not when young.

The rule was this all had to be walkable.

I am sure that there are many other things, but I would say in general in Europe, then try and cover the basics and keep them walkable. The method by which they are delivered might vary, but you want those services there. It is very easy to fall in love with some idyllic little place and find you are dependent on a car for everything. The days when tiny villages all had their populations of agricultural workers and could sustain local services have largely passed. They are now often the territory of the gentrified with a Range Rover or two, not places for communities. Maybe France is a bit better at hanging onto that agrarian society feel, but where I am it has gone.

I see you realllllllyyyyyyy like baguettes, maybe less carbs 😂😂😂

1) Basic medical clinics & hospitals within 60-90 minutes ; 2) pharmacies for all medicines, prescriptions & non-prescriptions, as well as basic CNA health care for colds, etc, as well as skin care; 3) Small basic grocery stores (bigger than Dollar stores, but smaller than large US grocery chain stores). This is because most French people shop for food almost daily, due to smaller refrigerators & smaller storage spaces in their homes or apts. 4) Tabac shops — community gathering places to have parcels left for pickup, do basic govt services, eg tax bills, etc; 5) Le post (office) — for mailing packages & letters to family & friends back in the USA. French post offices also have basic banking services & referrals for community workers (plumbers, electricians, etc)!!

When it comes to your health, you shouldn't have to rely on a pharmacy….. Food is your best medicine.

The MOST IMPORTANT is that you have a home and what you have is nice and comfortable in the size and the garden looks realy good.
The next important is that you have the MOST IMPORTANT shops you need !
The third important is that you have people living around you !
The fourth important is for to get use to and be friend with the old houseses (kind of spirit ) which when you got use to it it gives and means a lot even if it is OLD
You have time for to repair it to what you want or furninshed.
You are lucky with all those inhereted old wines (they cost a furtune if you would buy it in the shop …but be careful because older the wine is – it get strnger … you need only a sip for to already get a bit drunk… or put you in the laugh or realax mood.

Are Amazon deliveries a thing there and how do they work, if they are?

I'm new to your channel and find it informative as I'm planning on moving to French Polynesia.

From viewing your videos, I get a sense of belonging and community in those French villages, something solely missed here in the States ❤.

It really depends on what you want. We live in the pyrenean mountains in a two house hamlet 5 km from the village. It's a choice. We do have a bakery
In the village but it only opens for 2 hours a day and only at 10:30 am. Which doesn't bother me since I moved here to be off grid and bake our ownead. As far as an epicerie we have one two villages down the road. We only go shopping for groceries once a week and I normally don't run out of matches or anything vital. Happened in the beginning but lessons taught, lessons learned! Our doctor does make home visits if it's urgent. Last year had bronchitis and he came by three times to chek on me.
Our next real shopping town with an enormous farmers market 18 miles away((even though we live in the sticks our farmers market won place nr 16 in all of france, where normally it's the larger cities who carry the top notch spots and our little town only has 6490 inhabitants, it's because it is rather isolated and draws in numerous small villages of a widespread area). I go the day I do my weekly shopping and you get most vegetables, groceries like cheese, meat, locally brewded beer, vine, soap, spices Tisanes and whatever etc… . It has 21 different fastfood stands, prepared before your eyes, paella, thai, vietnamese, marrocean, libanese, brazilian, creole, vegetarian, vegetalian, curries, sushis, you name it, you get it… so it largely compensates living in a town, looking forward to it every week, trying out phantastic new foods for really low prices.
But , if you need all these things in a walking distance, our little town can offer anything you could dream of. For the more frugal people the numerous villages who have all the commodities mentioned in the video is about 8 miles away, with a pharmacy , the several doctors, a dentist, a small supermarket and the tabaco and several cafés and restaurants and those kind of villages with around roughly 500 inhabitants are spread around rather evenly in most french rural areas.

Our village ( 174 inhabitants)has a gradeschool, (which five of our kids went to before going to the collège in the town metionned above for further schooling)a post office, a restaurant/café and a bakery, but an epicerie would not survive here. There were several tries to open oe,, but it never really paid a good enough salery to make it worthwhile. There is a foodtruck that makes a tour around the hamlets twice a week for dire necessities and also a butchers and fishtruck which stop in the villages in our valley twice a week, so old people who don't have a car and live isolated will still be served.

I'm personally not francophone (germanic background) but greatly enjoy your vids.

Very good points. A village can be TOO small. The village shop closes, the baker retires, with luck the Mairie may have part time post service.
Too small for public transport, so you need to drive a few miles for supermarket, pharmacie, medical center etc, Which is fine for holiday home but not convenient as permanent residence, especially for older folk. Oh and you did not mention A SCHOOL, which is important for families with children.

Last time I was in Paris I had horrible hives. Have no idea how or why but went to the Pharmacie and they fixed my right up with a bottle of Zyrtec. Bye bye hives. I also loaded up on skin care products there and at Monoprix.

You should also look for "vide-gréniers". A sort of collective yard sale where people sell things they no longer want.

This is a great video. We are interested in retiring in France but would be leaving behind a very nice social network where we live in the U.S. We would be starting from scratch in France although we do have a sister and her family who live there. So my concern: how to find a new social network, how to make friends with similar interests, and how to do all of this with broken french? (Of course, my goal is to invest a lot of time into improving my french as soon as possible but it takes time…) The tip on associations is a really good one. I imagine looking for one focused on gardening which is a hobby of mine, as well as hiking, bicycling, etc. What has been like for you to integrate into the community and make friends? Maybe you could consider making a video on this if you haven't already.

Épicerie!! When you first said this, I thought there's a French word I don't know yet! But no, I just never heard it spoken before. I love that about foreign languages.