Sunday 18/05/25
When we posted on Easter Sunday, we had met with local estate agents and were not hugely optimistic of finding a rental property in the area as there was very little available and properties got snapped up as soon as they were advertised.
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| Lovely Provence, we can't wait for the lavender to bloom. |
However, shortly after our visit, we were contacted again to say there was a property about to come on the market and, given very few details apart from a few photos, we were asked if we were interested. Of course we jumped at the chance and, although there were a fair few hoops to jump through, we managed to secure the rental.
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| The dovecote - bedrooms in the tower, living area at ground level, challenging stairs and interesting bathroom arrangements. The positives far outweigh the negatives. |
It's been a very hectic few weeks while we sorted out all the admin required with renting in France but we finally moved in last Saturday - much sooner than we ever thought would be possible. It certainly helps being organised!
The property is a converted dovecote (Le Pigeonnaire de la Tuiliére - originally built in the 1800), which was first used as a holiday home for a Parisian couple and then let as a holiday rental. It has been unused for the past two years and the landlady decided to rather offer it as a full time property let. The timing was incredibly fortunate for us as the property hadn't been advertised yet so we weren't under as much pressure as we might have been with other properties.
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| Our favourite breakfast bench in our garden has this amazing view out over the Alps |
It's located on the outskirts of the medieval village of Mallefougasse and is at 750m elevation, partway up the Lure mountain which rises just over 1,500m. We have an extensive garden and the most incredible views out over the area.
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| Mallefougasse - we're way off the left, slightly around the hill. |
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| The garden Iris' are magnificent. |
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| Can't get away from lawn mowing duties... |
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| We even have wild orchids growing in the lawn. |
We're still very much in the settling-in phase and have a trip planned back to Brittany on Tuesday to fetch our few belongings from storage. It will be nice to have our stuff around us again - probably the final step away from our nomadic life of the past six years. We're really looking forward to living in and exploring Provence, a stunning corner of France.
Bonus pic:-
This weekend was our local village Bread festival where they fire up the historic bread oven, bake loads of charcoal-crusted loaves and celebrate local foods. The evening was rounded off with some jazz by local quintet, Jazz on Five. A lovely way to start integrating into village life.
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| Jazz on Five - quite different to the Jackson Five, as the host pointed out. 😊 |
