Sue Aran tells how her heart was won by a house in Gascony despite trials and tribulations…
My husband and I first travelled from Seattle, Washington to Gascony in May 2006 with a couple of friends, looking for a house to purchase together. All of us loved rural France. Our criteria included proximity to airport, train services, village life, doctors and a hospital. We rented a two-bedroom stone cottage in a small hameau (hamlet) in the Gers, (department 32). It’s often called the Tuscany of southwest France thanks to the great weather and bucolic landscapes.
For five weeks we spent mornings sight seeing and visiting local farmers’ markets. In the afternoons we enjoyed alfresco meals and long twilight evenings strolling country roads under a panoply of stars. We put 3,500 kilometers on our rental car looking at 25 houses in various stages of disrepair. A week before the trip ended we saw the last house – a 300-year-old ruin built of stone and colombage (half-timbering) sitting on a knoll in the middle of a 500-hectare farm.
The front door faced east, the rising sun cresting the village of Campagne d’Armagnac. To the south we could glimpse the peaks of the Pyrénées mountains. Just across the road to the west were vineyards and to the north, through the branches of an old oak tree, the 11th century Basque church, Cutxan, rose majestically into the azure blue sky. The ruin had no electricity, no water, and no plumbing. The attic was full of old bottles and rusted tools and the barn was stuffed with ancient farm equipment. An overgrown pond was a watering hole for deer, wild boar, crayfish and herons. For some inexplicable reason my husband and I were smitten. Our friends were not interested at all.
The good life in
Gascony