Focus on Montpellier

 

In my last post at the beginning of March I outlined a potential itinerary for our September scouting trip to France. We only have thirteen days to spend in the south, and this schedule would result in a lot of driving and no deep dives into local culture. We have since revised our plans and have decided that we will focus on Montpellier, which is a moderately sized city a few kilometers from the Mediterranean. Now we will have almost two weeks to explore one city and the areas surrounding it.

Montpellier is a modern, liberal university town with a thriving expat community. The core city is set up for walking and it has an excellent public transit system centered on trains, trams and buses that connect the various districts of the city proper with one another as well as the surrounding communities. The climate is warm and dry in the summers and moderate in the winters, with mostly clear skies for much of the year. The city boasts a major medical university (it is home to Europe's oldest medical school) and it offers very good health care facilities. There are gardens, squares, and pedestrian only areas throughout the city and a mix of old world charm in the center with more modern living a little further out.

We will spend much of our time visiting boarding stables to find something suitable for Topaz and Taylor. There is a halo of stables surrounding Montpellier extending from those in the foothills in the west to those on the coast to the east. Monthly prices per horse range from $250 for basic pasture with shelter to over $500 for stable boarding with daily turnout. There is a wide diversity of facilities as well: everything from grassy fields with an out building or two all of the way up to posh equestrian centers with arenas, round pens, private storage, wash areas and club houses.

We will probably get something in between. Our basic needs are a safe healthy place to keep our horses, a place to store tack and supplies, a place to park a small trailer, plus easy access to farrier and veterinary services. We'll want something not too far out of the city to keep the daily commute to less than half an hour and we will want some amount of trail accessible directly from the stables. Quite a few stables advertise trail access, but a visit to each will be needed to determine just what they mean by access and just how much trail is really there.

In addition to "pony time" we will also look at some of the neighboring communities -- specifically those connected by the tram system -- to see if we might prefer these to living in a neighborhood downtown.

And so the intent is when we move we will start in Montpellier and use it as a base for our first three months in France from where we can explore the other parts of the region that might also interest us for long term residency.  It may be that Montpellier is exactly what we want, or perhaps we'll decide to try out the Dordogne or the western Pyrenees. The best part of this plan is that we will be living in France sooner rather than later and will be integrating into French society and enjoying the benefits of living in a socially progressive country while we figure out exactly where to live.

I am excited by our potential new life in France which is situated in the heart of Europe and a only short distance from northern Africa. Rome, Athens, Stockholm, Berlin, Amsterdam, London and Casablanca are each only one non-stop flight from the Montpellier airport. Adventure is calling.