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Auntie Awesome’s Travel Log

As was my intention, I have come to the UK for the summer. It is exactly what I wanted and needed. Peaceful, green, no drama.

To knit up some loose threads from last time – I didn’t put my stuff in storage, I did find wonderful housesitters, the Cuenca airport has not closed as yet and Africa is not happening, which I think is a good thing really.

There was some last minute drama before I left Cuenca again, but that’s for another day. The stress did result in a recurrence of my upper respiratory problems, which is typical, so I no longer go to get it checked out. Thankfully, it more or less resolved before I had to get on the plane, which was a big relief. I had visions of a mob of passengers demanding that I be thrown out without a parachute as I went into spasms and paroxysms of wracking coughs almost turning my body inside out. So yeah, grateful that is over, for now at least.

I spent a night at an airport hotel at Heathrow, then found my way by bus to this little hamlet. I didn’t even know that there was a bus terminal at Heathrow, so I am still learning.

The only glitch was that I expected the first bus to drop me off at the bus station in High Wycombe. Instead, we reached something called High Wycombe Carriageway where there was nothing but an enormous grocery store, and a long, low brick building in front, where the bus stopped.

I consulted the driver, who didn’t know about buses to Aylesbury which was where I was headed towards, as that would be a different bus company. But he pointed me towards a bus stop in front of the low building. He suggested I wait there for a city bus that would likely to take me to the bus station, which would likely harbour the Aylesbury bus.

With no alternative in sight, I decided to follow his advice. I did wonder whether, as is the case in many places including Cuenca, I would be able to ride the bus without a card or pre-bought ticket. However, I figured there must be taxis in and out of the mega-grocery store, and I had taken the precaution of getting a UK SIM card in my phone, so I could probably call a taxi if all else failed.

None of the backup plans was necessary though. A bus pulled in, the driver allowed as how he was indeed going to the bus terminal (after a 15 minute wait) and he would take cash or a credit card for the £2 fare. Awesome.

That’s it. The sum total of drama for this trip, so far at least. My homeowner had described where I should get off the bus (conveniently, in front of a big Indian restaurant on the highway). I only had a few minutes to wander aimlessly (in the wrong direction of course) before she appeared with Jasper the dog, to lead me to her little house, about three minutes away, in a charming small development with a dozen or so townhouses all done up in stylish black shaker board siding.

The house is great. It’s always a relief to find a home that is fully equipped, well organized and comfortable. The homeowner even had a printed manual of critical and useful information. I am so grateful for that. It has been a source of some amazed humour, when I have occasionally over the years arrived at a housesit to find virtually no information at all, a dearth of what I would consider the kitchen basics, cupboards and fridge jammed so full there is nowhere for my food or even to lay open my suitcase, and sparse and uncomfortable furniture. It makes me feel like I am back in my student days. It doesn’t matter if the home is huge or tiny – organization and consideration for the person who will be living there, is always very welcome. You don’t want to be faced with essentially camping out, perching on the edges of someone else’s chaotic life or weird living arrangements. One or two of the bathrooms I’ve encountered!

Jasper is a large springer spaniel with comically long eyebrows and lashes.

He’s adorable. Although he did get very excited to meet me and kept jumping up, this turned out to be the exception to otherwise lovely behaviour.

He walks on a harness with the clip for the lead in front. I have been here several days and I still have to reverse engineer it every time I get him ready for his walk. Fortunately he is patient with my idiocy.

Maisie the cat is affectionate, but fairly independent too.

It’s funny to watch her wrestle with Jasper. She has a cat door and spends the night outside, but she can enter the front part of the house through the catflap. She is barred from the rest of the house and the bedrooms especially. I suspect this is at least in part because she is mighty huntress. I have come down two mornings in a row to find dead mice, one disembowelled. Not something you want to find in your bed. Although I am conscious of the high compliment she pays me, in presenting her hunting bounty to me.

Yesterday Jasper suddenly went charging out into the glorious garden and then Maisie came charging in and there was great excitement in the glassed in conservatory. I confined both pets in the house and went in search of what they were so interested in. Turned out to be a bird. A British robin I think.

Luckily, after I moved some furniture, it escaped out the open conservatory door back to the garden.

Much easier than the two magpies who got into the house I was looking after in Australia. That was quite the battle and ended up with a lot of mopping of bird poop too. This little robin was very politely behaved. Maybe it’s a British/Australian cultural thing?

The garden – oh my.

Everything is blooming both in the garden and in the country lanes where I walk Jasper.

The air smells of lilacs and green growing things. Even roses are in bloom against some cottage walls, as well as wisteria, laburnum, towering chestnut trees and many nameless (to me anyway) varieties of shrubs and plants.

Those are yellow roses climbing up the walls of that thatched roof house.

The garden here has a lemon tree. With a lemon. In mid-May.

I think this is a jack-in-the-pulpit?

The house is just outside the hamlet, and the hamlet is comprised of nothing but houses and a pub.

We are about 50 minutes from London in Buckinghamshire. The Prime Minister’s country residence of Chequers is about a 35 minute walk away over the fields. Many of the fields are dotted with sheep or horses. Jasper is a particular fan of the sheep, like these black ones.

There are many little hamlets with names like Great Kimble and Little Kimble, Monks Risborough and Princes Risborough (the latter of which is the nearest town with grocery stores and banks and such).

And, so unlike Canada, there are buses or even trains to take you everywhere among all these little settlements. As Jasper and I walked down a lane on the outskirts of the hamlet of Monks Risborough, we came upon a set of stairs leading to a long platform with a set of stairs leading down at the other end. It was a stop for the local train.

Princes Risborough has a charming little market square.

I enjoyed this surgery sign.

There is also this – a far cry from the ‘pool hall’ my parents used to decry in the town where I grew up.

The houses are mostly preserved cottages, farms, rectories and such, many with exquisite thatched roofs.

This one looks exactly like the woodland cottage where Sleeping Beauty hid out with her three good fairy godmothers before the whole regrettable pricking-her-finger-on-a-spindle incident.

But there are many more.

Some of the thatched roofs have intricate designs, or additions like these ducks.

Where houses do appear to be newer, they have clearly been built with the surrounding architecture and history in mind, and blend in seamlessly.

I just know there is a curved window seat set into that leaded glass bow window.

The houses do not have numbers. Instead, that are all named, unironically, things like Lilac Cottage, Foxes, Wyvern House, Hillview, The Old Forge, Mulberry House, Rectory Farm, The Grange. Olde England as envisioned in Disney films and Epcot, but the real thing.

Names do apparently change from time to time though.

Occasionally there is a bit of the past preserved in a way that makes me smile.

The gate has been open every time I’ve been by.

It’s probably not coincidental that I’ve seen a lot of expensive looking sports cars and even a big Rolls-Royce.

Those historic houses and especially the thatched roofs, must cost a fortune to maintain.

Jasper and I have walked and walked, for hours and hours, and I have yet to see one house less than impeccably maintained, including massive gardens and lawns.

We’ve come across churches that look like they could be in Canada.

But this one dates to the twelfth century.

And look, there seems to be a Canadian fetched up in this enchanted place.

All this is juxtaposed with areas of wild hedgerows, ancient mossy trees, covered with vines that look older that Canada.

It’s amazing to me how you can turn from the noisy, busy highway onto a tiny overgrown path marked “Public Footpath” and suddenly inhabit a quiet world full of blossoms and bunnies.

Very Beatrix Potter.

It is all quite stunning, but maintains its aura of peace and tranquility. It’s not flashy. It’s not gilt covered grandeur. It is the heart and soul of the English countryside.

I am so lucky to be here.

A lot has happened, or rather not happened, since I last posted a week and a half ago.

I got as far as arranging for an inspection of the second apartment I saw in Saint-Etienne. By then I had just two business days left in Saint-Etienne. I hadn’t heard from the guy who was supposed to show me three apartments Friday afternoon. Or Enzo, the guy who showed me the first apartment in Saint-Etienne, who had told me there was another to see.

I was feeling a lot of pressure. Pressure, I realised, that I was putting on myself. Why was I so invested in the idea of living in Europe? I knew why. Cuenca was painful. But I also was avoiding the stark truth. Which is, that if I left Cuenca for France or Spain, or Portugal or anywhere in Europe where I would want to live, my finances would be so tight that I would be unable to afford to engage in the very activities I wanted to move to Europe for.

Go back to Cuenca and live cheaply and well and travel now and then? Leaving aside the issue of my emotional and mental state in Cuenca, it’s a long way from there to anywhere. The last two trips I’ve made have brought my age home to me. Yes, I’m still doing great for a 71 year old person. But that will not last. I just read an article in Cuenca Highlife about a study that said four out of five sidewalks and streets in Cuenca are not accessible for people with mobility issues ranging from a cane to a wheelchair.

I got way too caught up in that dilemma. Like it had to be resolved right then.

Reframe the question and suddenly it’s a lot clearer.

I woke up the morning of the apartment inspection thinking, when am I happiest, or most content at least? When am I fully engaged in the world and not wallowing inside my own head?

The answer came immediately – when I am away. When I am traveling. When I am seeing and experiencing new things. When I am meeting new people.

So why was I so set on settling somewhere for the rest of my life? Wherever I end up, I know it has to be somewhere I can age in place. But this thought process made me realize, at least, that I was nowhere near ready to plunk down a good part of my ever diminishing capital buying a French condo that needs work and tying myself up so that I couldn’t travel.

I cancelled the home inspection, and resolved to stop looking at real estate websites. I immediately felt lighter in spirit. I think my gut had actually been trying to tell me that this was a bridge too far.

I allowed myself to just be a tourist for the rest of my stay in beautiful Saint-Etienne. I went off to the Museum of Modern Art.

There was a really powerful exhibition about and by women artists, which started with posters in support of the women of Iran.

I saw two terrific works by Kiki Smith. This one I found particulary moving, being as I am an old woman now.

The detail in the hands and feet in this one.

And of course, the cat.

Some, I did not understand at all.

And this one reminded me of some of the ugly wallpaper I had seen while apartment hunting.

I visited the incredible indoor market, which was one of only two in France to rank among the top 50 in the world according to some recent survey.

I had some good meals. I generally gave myself a rest from existential angst until I return to Cuenca on April 13th.

What then about the immediate future?

I still have my one way Business Class ticket between Quito and Madrid for May 14th. I had thought of cashing it in, but decided I would go back to Europe, do some more traveling and defer any big decisions until I was either ready to settle in one place again (for a while?) or couldn’t travel any longer because of money or physical or mental deterioration.

In the meantime, the world’s a big place, full of possibilities.

Call me Carmen Sandiego.

My first thought was to get an Airbnb. There’s no doubt that housesitting does tie you down some. I’d wait out the rainy and cold weather months in Cuenca (June, July and August). Maybe I’d go back to Cuenca via Canada, in late October for Thanksgiving.

But Airbnbs are costly, especially in the summer months, when I would be in Europe. It’s hard to find anything, anywhere for under 3k a month and most are 4k to 5k.

My Irish friends invited me to come and stay with them, but I don’t like to outstay my welcome. At some point I will almost certainly go back, because I love them and Ireland. But I tabled that option for later.

There was also still the problem of my Cuenca rental house, full of my possessions.

Give up the house? The lease ends next month. Sell the possessions? Or ask my landlord to go month to month and treat the house as a rather pricey storage unit while I travel, which is what I have done these last two trips.

I don’t think I have ever described this house on any public forum. It’s a smallish, beautiful, bright house, on three levels, built into the side of a hill. It has three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms and terrific views.

I pay $350 US per month (about $470 CDN). It is fifteen or twenty minutes from Baños where I was swimming three times per week. Five minutes from the bus which takes me to Centro in 30 minutes or so.

There are spectacular views from the kitchen and where my desk is parked.

The down side to those views is that the house is half way up a very steep hill, and the road is not paved. The house has no number. Google maps and WhatsApp both show the house several blocks south of where it is, for reasons known only to the tech gods.

In other words, it’s hard to find the first time you go there. And it’s hard to walk up that hill, especially when the road is muddy. There is no parking. It amazes me that school buses and garbage trucks get up and down there.

If I sell my stuff, how do I tell people where to come for the sale? Where do the crowds park? But if I don’t sell my stuff, I’m paying rent, internet, water and electricity on a house I intend not to occupy for a good part of the year.

But I can’t see leaving it empty.

That means housesitters. That’s fine for shorter periods, but something in me revolts at paying rent and expenses on a house for ten months out of a year, for someone else to live in.

I can hear everyone thinking, why don’t you get a storage unit? Well, I had researched this possibility on other occasions, and come up with only one or two private individuals who rent their garages or spare rooms as storage. I kept the idea in my back pocket though.

After spending a few hours on Airbnb, I asked myself why exactly it was that I had set my face against housesitting. I have been to most places in the world I wanted to go as a tourist and experienced a lot of them in depth. At the same time, some of my most enjoyable housesits were very low key. If what I am looking for now is less wow factor and more ‘being away’ experiences without too much stress, why not housesitting?

I went back on Trusted Housesitters (TH). The first thing I saw was a housesit in May and early June in Lymington in the UK. I had done a housesit there in May 2016, as it happens and loved the town.

It is on the south coast, opposite the Isle of Wight. The Georgian and Tudor architecture is well preserved and it is full of great walks, and great cafés and restaurants.

The gardens were gorgeous.

Tea rooms too.

I applied. Then saw another listing in Lymington, the dates of which dovetailed almost exactly with the first one. I applied. Both sets of homeowners got back to me right away and took me on board.

I can see myself sitting in other lovely gardens in Lymington, with cuddly dogs lying near me, as I enjoy a glass of wine in the long summer twilights. A way to be out of the usual while still in familiar surroundings. And really, to speak my own language for a while will be a relief.

Mid-May to July 2nd, sorted.

I then looked for another sit to take me through the period between when I arrive in Madrid and when I go to the first Lymington housesit. I found one almost right away, not too far north of London.

One of the Lymington homeowners is also away from the end of August to mid-September. At their request, I agreed to do that sit as well.

At the same time, I advertised on TH for a housesitter for myself from May 13 to October 20. I said I would be wiling to split it into two portions if people didn’t want to do the whole five months. If you stay longer than three months, you have to buy an extended visa.

For reasons which, as usual, make no sense to me, TH has instituted a practice of pausing listings once there are five applicants. As an applicant myself, this is annoying. The interesting housesits in out of the way places or big cities like London or Paris, attract many applicants. You have to keep checking and apply as soon as you see anything remotely interesting.

As a person looking for a housesitter in a popular location, it is really, really annoying. Cuenca is one of those places that is on the radar of a lot of housesitters. As soon as my listing was live, I had five applicants. Two of the five were along the lines of “Cuenca! Cuenca! I’ve wanted to go to Cuenca for so long! I can’t do your dates, but please keep me in mind in future.” Two more said they could come, but when I took the precaution of checking the online calendar TH keeps for each sitter, they were already booked for part of the time. I figured if they took my sit, they’d be ditching someone that they had already made a commitment to. Who wants that kind of person?

So I had to keep sorting through applications and dismissing the useless ones every twenty minutes in order to get more applicants who were remotely suitable. Very frustrating.

I finally managed a video call with a young woman who I thought was great. As we were talking, she asked about flights.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. A few weeks ago I’d read that the airport in Cuenca is closing for three months, possibly as early as May 16th – two days after I am scheduled to leave. I had vaguely kept that in the back of my mind while thinking about my own travel plans, but had forgotten that it would affect housesitters in Cuenca as well. I really am getting old and dull.

A scheduled three months job in Cuenca can easily turn to six months or even a year. Already I’m reading the contract is actually for seven months.

And the business owners are up in arms, especially those engaged in the tourist industry. They want the works put off until who knows when and the new mayor says he has no choice but to sign the contract and chaos is looming, aaaahhhhh!!

Meanwhile, this is reported this morning: “In a statement last week, Latam said it is exploring adding flights from Cuenca to several cities in Peru. “In the past, flights operated between Piura, Chiclayo, Lima, Cusco and Cuenca and we plan to resume one of these routes in the near future,” the airline said. It noted that Cuenca’s Mariscal La Mar Airport received international certification in January.”

So it finally gets certified for international flights – let’s close it for three to seven months! Makes total sense, right???

You may have read about the earthquake March 19th, which was about 170 kms west of Cuenca. Usually the most we get from earthquakes is swinging light fixtures and maybe some broken crockery. This one resulted in the destruction of some two dozen houses, one of which fell on a passing car and killed a person.

It also caused widespread rockslides on the road between Cuenca and Guayaquil, which has one of only two international airports in Ecuador. That trip by road takes about three hours or so. When it is closed, which it frequently is, the alternative route takes about ten hours. Likewise, if you have to drive to Quito rather than fly, you’re looking at ten hours.

I figured this would make the prospect of the housesit considerably less attractive to people.

It also makes me understand how cut off Cuenca is without its airport.

Storage of any kind started looking better and better. I went on Gringo Post (which is the online source for most things in Cuenca) and searched. Only one woman was advertising, the same woman that had been advertising every time I had looked before.

I sent her an email, as well as reaching out to some of my friends. I submitted my own ad for Gringo Post on Saturday, which meant it would not appear until Monday.

Barbi, the storage lady, got back to me. As we messaged back and forth, her prices kept going up. She assured me that there was little or no storage to be had in Cuenca, which is what I had thought from my online research. I agreed to pay her for six months in advance, cash. I conscripted a friend to accept an E-transfer and go to Barbi’s house with the cash.

Meanwhile, another friend said I could rent her spare bedroom. The friend who was taking the cash over contacted another mutual friend and determined her son has a bedroom I could rent. Another friend offered space, and contacted our former mutual gardener who got in touch about renting me his space.

The transfer went through, sort of, but my friend can’t access it because it would go to a bank she has no connection with. So I’ve got a fair bit of money in limbo with a transfer my friend can’t access and I can’t cancel. She said the bank’s message said it would expire April 23 and we both assume it will come back to me.

A problem for another day.

The ad appeared on Monday. I have received 21 offers of space at the price I stipulated ($75-$100 US per month, depending on the size of the space). Offers are still coming in. Two of those offers are from actual storage companies. Why couldn’t I find them online?

So apparently it’s not that there is no storage space in Cuenca. It’s that only Barbi advertises.

By then, I was getting packed up to come to my housesit in Vienna. I was actually happy to leave France, which are not words I ever thought I would say. Protests were getting larger and larger and more and more violent.

This is what I found in the streets near me in Saint-Etienne, the morning after the biggest protest. I can only imagine what Paris looked like.

I’m worryingly thinking of post-WW I Germany. The political centre party was ineffective and people protested and scorned it. Then it became an existential struggle between the far right and far left. What will become of France if the centre cannot hold?

It was smooth sailing to Vienna. I stayed in a hotel that night as the home I am housesitting for is only a studio and there was no room for me. That was fine. I saw a few sights.

Super cute display of teddies on one window.

And Easter goodies beginning to appear.

I had a terrific dinner and cocktails in central Vienna.

Look at the prices though – 16€. That’s $24 Canadian for a cocktail. See why I concluded I can’t afford cocktails and the other fine things in life if I move to Europe?

Oh, just in case you’re wondering if I drank my dinner, I also had an excellent steak and potatoes.

Just before I checked out of my hotel the next morning, I had a quick look at TH. There was a housesit in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam for July 8 to Aug. 10.

She had four applicants already and the fifth was probably typing as I looked. I wasn’t at all ready to think about whether I actually wanted to go to Dar es Salaam, but I did a quick application to hold my place.

I figured I didn’t have much chance, but why not?

I proceeded to my housesit. I learned in the process that the river in the historic centre, which I had always thought was the Danube when I was here before, is not the Danube at all. My old geography teacher would be annoyed.

The housesit is about five kms from the historic part, and is right next to the Danube.

That’s a swan’s butt in the foreground. There are many of them.

The owner is a warm and welcoming person. Her tiny studio apartment is very well organized, warm and comfortable, and even has a back yard. It is a two minute walk to a huge linear park area along the Danube with a dog park and lots of paved paths.

You can easily walk an hour without coming to the end of it.

Daffodils and forsythia are out.

The two Labrador retrievers are incredible – calm, obedient, friendly. So well trained they both walk off lead. They show no interest in chasing bikes or skateboards or cars or kids or anything. Well, okay, one of them found a mouse under a grating a while back apparently, and she does live in hope. They’re not even that terribly interested in other dogs.

But no dog or person is perfect. They are interested in eating anything they can get, so they wear muzzles and even with that, they try.

To my surprise, Tuesday, after my homeowner left and I got online, there was a message from the Africa lady, Vicky. We set up a call for the next morning.

She is German, and moved to Tanzania two years ago. She doesn’t actually live in Dar es Salaam, but in a gated compound, a fifteen minute walk from a village. The two dogs seemed pretty calm when we were talking. She turned her phone around and showed me the house and garden.

Both are huge. The house is a little run down, as is the furniture.

It’s a furnished rental. I get it and it doesn’t bother me at all.

But the garden is fabulous. She has a gardener every day.

And best of all, she’s 200 metres from the white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean. There is a gate in the backyard that gives access. The dogs love to be walked there. They chase crabs.

She offered it to me. This was her first time on TH. Leaving her dogs, she was pretty anxious to have someone experienced.

After having satisfied myself that the internet was okay and that I could get food in the village with a fifteen minute walk, I decided to take it. Why not? My days of lengthy, hard air travel are undoubtedly limited. If this lady has lived there comfortably for two years, why not me? Broaden my horizons while dipping a toe – or maybe swimming?- in the Indian Ocean.

There are six days between leaving Lymington and starting the African sit. And there are 18 days before I have to be back in Lymington.

I’ve started looking at safaris…..

But excuse me now, I have to go start brushing up on my swahili.

PART I – Saint- Etienne

I’m loving Saint-Etienne. As I said in my last post, it is a medium sized city (about 174,000 people) in the Loire Department on the Central Massif. It is 60 kms from Lyon and two and a half hours from Geneva. Five hours by train to Paris. An hour by air. It has a vibrancy to it that Beziers lacks. Perhaps because there is a large student population.

It is quite green. It edges into the Forez Mountains, the gorges of the River Loire and the Pilat Regional National Park. It has a lower part and an upper part, somewhat like Cuenca.

John would have loved it. Lots of stuff with rails. Not just trams, but three train stations. And almost all the way from Lyon, there were huge numbers of multiple tracks, freight trains and rolling stock. Yeah, that’s what you call train cars when you live for fifty years with a train fanatic.

The one time I actually visited Lyon, John and I met up there.

I came up from Toulouse and he came from Canada to visit Mulhouse, the location of the French National Railway Museum. We had a great few days in Lyon together.

See, even sitting here in a city with no connection to John, I still make the connection to John. Dammit.

Although it was settled in medieval times, Saint-Etienne’s growth is due to the arms manufacturing industry that began as far back as the 1400s. In the 1600’s to this was added the manufacturing of ribbons and a type of heavy gilt embroidery known as passementerie. The kind that goes on fancy curtain pulls and military uniforms. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passementerie

Not as incongruous as it sounds when you couple it with arms manufacturing and the proximity to Lyon, which was a great textile manufacturing centre.

By the late 19th century and into the 20th, bicycle manufacturing also became a mainstay and still exists in the city today. Saint-Etienne was also a hub for the mining industry. The School of Mining here occupies one of the old arms manufacturing buildings.

Many industrial towns and cities were and are, less than beautiful.

I wondered if that was why Saint-Etienne never appeared in articles and websites about the beauties of France, or where to live in France. Because it was scarred from its industrial years and lacked the grace and culture endemic to other parts of this country.

I was delighted to find that this is not the case.

As I mentioned in the last post, Saint-Etienne is trying to reposition itself as a City of Design. The actual Cité du Design (a sort of museum), has taken over an old arms manufacturing complex.

Indeed, many of the old manufacturing factories and offices have been converted to other uses. As you can see from the photo above, those 18th and 19th century buildings were proudly adorned with all the flourishes of fin de siècle architecture, despite their industrial purpose.

Cafés, markets, restaurants and boulangeries and patisseries abound here. You know I am all about the food.

Aside from all the fancy foods, they have my favourite cereal.

I fell in love with the antique and junk shops.

Who doesn’t want to live in a place you can buy a skeleton in a glass case?

Saint-Etienne has an opera https://opera.saint-etienne.fr/otse/. This month there is a Beethoven marathon among other performances. Tickets 10€ (less than $15 CDN).

In June there will be an actual opera – Verdi’s Macbeth. Tickets range from 10€ ($15 CDN) to 61€ ($90 CDN). Last time I checked in Ottawa or Toronto it was really difficult to find anything under $100.

Saint-Etienne, at least what I have seen of it, can hold its place in French culture.

PART II – Apartment Hunting: Two Possibles

But what of my quest for an apartment? I’m happy to report that several real estate agents have responded to my messages and I’ve seen two places, with three more to come.

Apartment Number One – Needs Work but the Possibilities!

The first does undoubtedly need work. But as I could probably buy it for 75,000 euros (about $110,000 Canadian) I have not ruled it out.

It is a fairly short walk to Centreville. It is also a two minute walk in the other direction to the trams and buses and one of Saint-Etienne’s three train stations.

The street the building is on is narrow and a little dark.

The area seemed rather run down by the standards of other areas in Saint-Etienne. But in fairness it was a cloudy day.

The nearby park was not as grand as some, but I’m sure on a sunny day when the trees are green, it would be more attractive.

The apartment building is 80 years old, although well kept inside.

The outside is rather dirty.

It has an elevator.

Although I haven’t mentioned it before, this is one of the difficulties of finding a suitable apartment in France. Many of the buildings, even 20th century ones five and six stories tall, do not have elevators. No wonder the French are fit.

The stairs are not too bad, if it came to it.

The apartment is about 960 square feet with three good sized bedrooms.

And this is why it is still on my radar:

It has a very long balcony. There are beautiful views from that balcony.

The balcony itself stretches the width of the apartment and can be accessed from both the living room and one of the bedrooms.

All the living areas have hardwood floors. The living area is huge and bright, with floor to ceiling windows.

The kitchen needs to be remodeled, but is large enough for a small table or bar and stools. The cupboards were old and rather rickety.

Downside aside from the age of the building and the unprepossessing exterior? Those cupboards are rickety. But while kitchen could perhaps wait for a renovation. The bathroom could not.

It’s not even useable as it is. It would have to be pulled out and entirely redone.

Another downside is that the condo fees are high at 300€ per month ($440 CDN), I presume because older buildings need more upkeep. I would have to check into things like when the electrical and plumbing in the building were last upgraded.

The biggest question is whether I am up for undertaking a renovation project. In a city where I know no one and speak the language only functionally well. On the other hand, I would get the fixtures I chose. Which would no doubt be the most expensive because I have an unerring instinct for falling in love with expensive things.

Apartment Number 2 – Better Condition, Views, But Costlier

On the cost of living issue, I got ten tickets, each good for unlimited travel for 90 minutes, for 13€. That works out to less than $2 CDN per trip. Or in my case. $1 per trip for the two round trips I have taken, as in each case, I was less than 90 minutes.

The bus was electric, clean quiet and level with the curb.

It took fifteen minutes from the centre of town to the apartment building. The bus stop was literally across the street.

The buses seemed to go about every ten minutes. And there is a good website that lets you plot your journey. The infrastructure in France is well ahead of that in Ecuador in such matters.

The building stands at the cusp of a lovely area with cafés, shops and grocery stores in the Centreville direction of the street, and an absolute mass of these enormous apartment buildings further uphill in the other direction of the street.

I was happy my building came before this area, thankfully, hidden by a curve in the road. .

The building I was to see has nine stories, and the exterior was much more spruce than the older one I saw.

I liked that the balconies are independent of each other. The surrounding trees are mature.

There were spring flowers blooming in the grass. The whole location felt quite human scaled.

The building is not new, but it is newer than the one I saw previously, and seems generally to be more cared for. The agent told me that the electrical system in the entire building had been replaced six months ago. This is all verifiable through the minutes of the condo association and other documents which have to be produced by the owner, by law, once an offer is made.

The entrance was very clean.

On the downside, there were four steps up from ground level entrance to post box level.

On the other hand yay, I could get mail if I lived in France. Ecuador no longer has a post office. And send postcards to my family without 16 stamps on them.

Another five steps to reach the elevator.

If I lost mobility, could I live there?

I was perplexed to note the elevator buttons said 1/2, 3/4 and so on. When the doors opened, there were six stairs to climb down to level 4 where this apartment is (and back up when leaving), and six to climb up to level 5. Weird.

So one more accessibility barrier. It’s fine for now. In fact it’s good exercise. But if I’m looking for an apartment to age in place, this is a factor.

The apartment is 85 square meters (914 square feet), so slightly smaller than the other one. It is also three bedrooms and has hardwood floors (in good condition, unlike the other apartment).

What you see when you enter the front door. Then you turn right and see this. I was hooked.

The second photo is looking back from the front of the living room towards the kitchen. It’s too big an area to get in one photo.

The balcony is smaller than in the previous apartment.

But the views are so lovely.

There is a school opposite and the agent told me that this makes the chances of another tall building going up and blocking the view to be almost nil. Maybe, maybe not. But for now – those views! They make the whole living space seem very open and free. Safe though, as there is a metal door that rolls down over them, if I were concerned about such things.

There are closets in each bedroom.

Not great closets it is true, but space to put stuff in nevertheless. Closets are also not common in France.

Bedrooms are always hard to get photos of because they aren’t huge, but certainly these three are all big enough for my purposes. Bigger than my guest bedroom in Cuenca.

The metal shutters over the window in what I was told was the largest bedroom are not functioning but I was assured that the current owner would fix them before sale. I assume the view from the shuttered bedroom is the same as from the kitchen balcony, as it is on the same side.

The views from the two bedrooms I could see out of are nice. The same as the big photo above.

There are two closets in the long hallway as well.

The kitchen is galley style.

Yes, there was a second, fully enclosed balcony off the kitchen. It was a little rough, but there were shelves. Two balconies in this apartment.The front one gets morning sun and the back one, afternoon sun. Brightens the kitchen some I expect.

That second balcony had some shelves. And a cat door…..

The floor in the kitchen.

It has a built in wall oven and a dishwasher, so I wouldn’t have to buy an oven. The dishwasher is just a bonus.

There is a built in hob or stove top in the counter top. The backsplash tile is ugly, but I could live with it if the budget did not allow for a remodel. There is a built in space for a microwave above that.

The sink is well placed and in decent shape. And it runs off to the right. I look for that ever since living in places like the ill-starred river apartment and my last house, where it ran off to the left and there was no place to put the dirty dishes in the other side. Of these small things is comfort built.

The cupboards look newish – within the last five to ten years I would say.

They were clean and seemed sturdy.

The floor tile is a little broken up but I could put down a jute runner if I didn’t want to fix that.

The counter top could bear replacing but it’s no worse than the one in my former house. I

It has a wood cutting board in the centre on one side. Lots of counter space and cupboards. Certainly more than in my present house. I forgot to ask where the hook up for the washing machine is.

Presumably either the open space under the counter or in the adjacent enclosed balcony.

The shower room is pretty new.

The vanity cupboards were similar to those in the kitchen – newish and worked well. A nice big sink.

The shower room even has a towel heater bar.

The shower itself was a decent size. The tiles have some mould.

I’d have to see if that could be removed with deep cleaning, or if they would need to be replaced.

The separate toilet cubicle made me laugh out loud. Very common to have the toilet in a separate room here, but this is the first one that looks like it was built to the tastes of the Little Mermaid!

Definitely a new toilet seat and paint needed in there.

Aside from the ugly wallpaper being torn down and fresh paint applied, there is no work that would absolutely have to be done.

The condo fee is either 220€ ($322 CDN) or 320€ ($470 CDN). The agent was speaking very rapid French and I didn’t really catch it all. I think possibly the condo fee is 220€ and the taxi fonciére(real estate tax) is 100€ per month – I heard 1200€ per year. Obviously I’d have to check that all out if I decide to make an offer.

Interestingly, the condo fee includes hot water and heat. The building is heated as a whole, and the hot water comes from a common source. You have control over the temperature in your own apartment and can use as much hot water as you like. Because in addition, each apartment is separately monitored somehow and at the end of the year there is a settling up. You either get some of your condo fee back, or you pay more. The agent couldn’t give me much of an idea about how much I might spend on those utilities or about electricity, because the former occupants were a family of five!

There is a hook up for internet in the apartment. The agent said that might run about $40 Canadian per month. Those cost analyzing websites tend to lump electricity, garbage, hot water and so on into ‘utilities’ costs so I’m somewhat in the dark as to what I might pay for electricity, given that the other utilities are covered by the condo fee. My best guess is $100 to $200 CDN per month. I will inquire on expat sites online.

Both the agent and my sister queried whether this apartment was too big for me. I don’t think so. I like having three bedrooms. One for me, one for my desk and one for the visitors I will hopefully get. Two of my grandchildren have already expressed enthusiasm about visiting me in France. And it is certainly much cheaper, faster and quicker to get here than Ecuador.

Progress – but now I have a real option, the difficult part is facing reality and making a decision. Light in that tunnel or the train approaching?

I came to France after my truly absorbing travels through Egypt and Istanbul, to see if there is an apartment I could buy within my 100,000€ budget, with costs I can afford, somewhere I want to live.

Sitting in Cuenca, mining through real estate aggregate sites like Bien’ici, it seemed there should be lots of possibilities. Not in Paris of course, or bigger, more sophisticated cities like Lyon, but in smaller cities like Beziers, or Bordeaux. I was intrigued when I came across Saint-Etienne in my researches.

I am in Istanbul, after eighteen wonderful days in Egypt. What an experience. I have thousands of photos and hundreds of stories about that, especially the magnificent tombs.

Just three short days in Istanbul have resulted in lots more photos and stories. That is the Topkapi dagger up above. For now though, I’ll leave off the sights, historical and architectural monuments, art, jewels and treasures, and move to a lighter topic – shopping!

I had arranged to be taken to the post office. I had 13 postcards to stamp and mail. Abul, my guide on the day I made this request, complied with good humour. But I have no doubt he was thinking loudly to himself “For this I got a degree in Egyptology?” I figured we go in, we buy 13 international stamps, stick them on and off we go.

Not quite.

Abdul took a number. Next thing I knew, he was standing at the counter – without me. I hadn’t heard a number called. He had suggested that I stay in the car too, which I didn’t. I think he thought things would proceed more smoothly without me. He might have been right.

I came to Egypt because I was accepted for a housesit in Cairo. Due to my uncertainty about whether I’d even be able to get out of Ecuador, I suggested to the homeowner that he try to find someone else while here was still time. I didn’t want to leave him with no one if my Ecuadorian residency visa and passport issue didn’t get sorted out, and I never arrived. He did get someone else, and even though my issues also got sorted out at the last minute, it was the right choice for me to back away and ensure he would not be left in the lurch.

Montpellier is in some respects an outlier among cities in the south of France. Unlike Toulouse, Nimes, Avignon and others, it has no Roman or Greek roots. It is a newer city (by the standards of Europe), having been established about 1000 A.D. when the local lords, the Guilhems, combined a couple of villages, built a castle and surrounded the whole thing with a wall.

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