I thought I had it all figured out. I KNEW where I was going to buy a house in France. I did ALL the research and visited the region multiple times. We had SO many lists. And it ticked all the boxes: Burgundy. Proximity to Paris and Lyon, which both have international airports. The wine! The great food. Countryside. Great hospitals nearby. It was endless. So, I moved to Beaune.
I found a great apartment, made friends (some that I now think of as family), and searched for a house to buy.
But something was terribly “off” for me. The first was the bone-chilling winters. Ice, hail storms, snow. I trudged through the cobblestone streets of this stunning medieval village and couldn’t quite understand how these delicate pinot noir vines made it through these harsh storms. If they can survive, I can too.
Spring came and went, and summer arrived en force. The temperatures climbed to triple digits (above 37 Celsius). Like the poor grapes on the vine, I suffered the first heatwave. During the second heatwave, a girlfriend and I escaped to Chamonix. The third? I gave up and fled to Brittany (Bretagne).
With all of my research and know-it-all mentality, what I forgot was my love for the ocean. In Burgundy, I was about as landlocked and stricken with the two weather climates I dislike the most.
It’s all in thanks to Pearl, really. She was born in Bretagne, and in May 2020, I drove out to the region to meet my forever baby. I immediately fell hard for her and the area she was born in. I vowed to go back.
When the third heatwave came around in Beaune, I rented a summer house within 30 minutes of the beaches of Cotes d’Armor. And we never looked back. I returned to Brittany and purchased this house. Yes, I keep a flat in Paris for work, but this is our long-term vision.
We have been working on renovations of the house for a year now, and I can’t wait to share the next few weeks with you.
Bisous and big hugs from Bretagne, France,
Shannon