How to Buy a House in Provence

Even now, with the check cleared and the keys in hand, I'm not entirely sure what motivated me to buy a house in France.

Certainly, the happy memory of the decade I spent living in Paris and Avignon had something to do with it. Certainly, the stories my father told me when I was growing up about his landing on Normandy Beach on D-Day, the beauty of Normandy, the charm of the French had something to do with it. Certainly, the anger and fear I feel over the direction my own country is headed played into my decision to buy a home outside the United States. But really, I guess, despite all the research, self-analysis and real estate data collection, it was more about a simple feeling of love that has always drawn me there.

Lawrence Durrell summed it up in something I first read 30 years ago. He wrote: "I believe you could exterminate the French at a blow and resettle the country with Tartars and, within two generations discover, to your astonishment, that the national characteristics were back at norm – the restless, metaphysical curiosity, the tenderness for good living, and the passionate individualism…. This is the invisible constant... "

So now, from my laptop in Texas, I'll recount how I went about finding the perfect cottage in the perfect French village and it will give me great pleasure to recall all of this until I can return to my village again.