Frequently Brian and I are asked how we selected (or “ended up in”) Sérignan as our home in the South of France. This is the story of how we were introduced to this beautiful village and how it became our first home in France.
Pre-ramble
Before his senior year in High School, Brian was a foreign exchange student to Australia and got the bug for travel. During his junior year of college, he studied in Passau Germany, traveled extensively on a Eurail Pass, and fell in love with Europe. During his professional career, he was able to travel around the world, but always looked forward to his European trips. On those occasions that I could join him — in England, France, and one trip to Iceland — I would jump at the chance of a European trip. We also moved around the USA quite a bit, having had lived in California, Florida, Iowa, and Oregon. But, despite the distance from family and friends, Europe still had our hearts.
Costa Rica
Starting around 2022, Brian and I began to seriously discuss selling our home in Portland, Oregon and moving to a country where we could live just off of our savings. We had the wonderful opportunity to travel to in Costa Rica in early 2023, and we used the opportunity to view properties with the idea of perhaps buying a house and moving there. However, while Costa Rica had the advantage of being fairly close to the US and being affordable, it wasn’t Europe.
Spain
So, we decided to focus on Europe. France would have been our first choice, overall, but we had the (mistaken) idea that it would be difficult for us to emigrate there. With Spanish being my second language, and with our next big trip planned for Spain in November of 2023, we started looking into the Spanish visa process. We even arranged the latter part of our pending vacation to include searching for where we might live.
The longer we researched, though, the more we felt that Spanish visas were going to be prohibitively complicated for us, given our particular circumstances. In reconsidering other options, we realized that we had never actually researched the French visa process, and — lo and behold — it was less complicated for us than Spain’s. Plus, after only five years in France, we could apply for dual citizenship with the US, whereas in Spain, the process would take 10 years and we could only become Spanish citizens — doing so we would have to renounce our US citizenship: no dual nationality!
France
Thus it was that in September 2023, we switched our focus in Duolingo from Spanish to French, and we shifted six days of our Spanish vacation to exploring France instead. We chose to explore just north of Barcelona in the “Occitanie” region, along the coast of the Mediterranean.
This area had multiple advantages for us. First, for practility, it would be close to Spain during our vacation; we could get there and spend more time exploring and less time traveling. Second, the proximity to Spain would mean more opportunity to visit Spain and our Spanish expat friends; I would therefore also get more opportunity to improve my Spanish language skills. Finally, part of the appeal of Spain was living in a warmer, drier climate than Portland, Oregon — a climate that Spain shares with that part of the South of France!
So we planned four nights in the French city of Beziers, and two nights a bit farther east in the larger city of Montpellier. We would explore the areas and get an idea where we might want to make our first home in France. To get our French long-stay visas, we would have to prove we had one year of living arrangements secured, so the goal for our trip was to narrow down our favorite area, and then Brian would make a return trip in January to secure an actual apartment.
French Connections
Knowing we were now seriously dedicating ourselves to emigrating to another country, we had concerns that we might end up in our new home halfway around the world only to feel isolated and alone. We had made a few friends years before on our trip to Toulouse, so we reconnected with them. We also asked various friends in the US and Canada if they might have connections in France, and we started reaching out to people online. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we would already have more than a handful of people who we would know ahead of time and might meet on our trip.
Two of these new online friends were Paul and Alex who lived in a seemingly obscure village named “Sérignan” just outside the city of Beziers. While Alex is French (and his English at the time was about where our French was: i.e., beginning), Paul is British and very much bilingual.
Paul and Alex were immediately very helpful and informative as we asked them about the region and the local cities and towns. We had a number of conversations about our plans and our interests. The more I explained what we felt we would be looking for in a place to live, the more Paul seemed to feel that we should seriously consider Sérignan itself. He repeatedly extolled Séerignan’s many benefits (which I will cover below). We explored Sérignan remotely via Google Maps and Google Earth, and the pictures looked interesting, but not overly compelling. I have to admit, I mostly chalked up Paul’s enthusiasm to “pride of place”; however, I did completely agree that we should visit the village — both to see the place, and to get the opportunity to meet some of our new friends in France.
And that is how it came about that we arranged to visit Sérignan on our first full day in France. We would arrive in Beziers on a Thursday night from Madrid, and late in the morning on Friday we would take a bus to Serignan to meet Alex and Paul. What’s more, because Alex was starting a business managing rental properties, Archipel-Keys (archipel-keys.com), he had connected with a building owner who had a brand new (as in just recently built) apartment available. It was right near the center of town, and we could see it when we visited.
Falling in “Love at First Sight” with Sérignan
November 17, 2023, we stepped off the E-line bus from Beziers at Sérignan’s beautiful promenade (remembering, of course, to say “Merci, au revoir!” to the bus driver). We recognized Paul and Alex waiting for us, did “les bises” (and perhaps a hug or two — we are Americans, after all) and joined them for coffee at the Le Grand Café at that end of the promenade. Paul and Alex, were as pleasant in person as they were on text and video calls. Furthermore, they introduced us to a number of their friends and acquaintances who walked by the café or joined us at its tables. Everyone was welcoming and friendly and interested in hearing about us and our trip. Most spoke at least some amount of English as well, and even offered to help us with our French.
After about 30 minutes, Alex and Paul asked if we’d like to walk around the village on our way to the 11AM appointment to see the apartment. Along the walk they showed us a number of Sérignan’s street art installations — mostly interesting and clever paintings distributed among the walls of the city, but also a variety of sculptural works. They explained how you can see bits of the town’s medieval ramparts peeking out in places between the newer (but often still quite old) buildings.
Everything was enchanting. The streets of the old “center” part of the village bend and meander, often too narrow for cars. Many of the residents have created beautiful displays of plants on the fronts of their buildings. The clever street art greets you from strategic spots througout.
On the north end of the “old village” is La Cigaliere, a not-inconsiderable music and performance venue. On the south end is the Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain (“MRAC”), an impressive regional contemporary art museum.
We walked past two butcher shops, two bakeries, a local wine shop, and numerous restaurants. It being Friday, we walked past the village’s outdoor “farmer’s market”, which is every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We saw the impressive Collégiale Notre-Dame-de-Grâce de Sérignan — the church just outside the center of the village.
And then: the apartment. Brian and I were stunned when we walked into the newly built, fully furnished two-bedroom apartment, one floor up from the street at the back of its clean, stylishly appointed building. It had been planned as an AirBNB-type rental, but had not yet ever been rented. Alex had asked the owner if they would be interested, instead, in renting out the apartment for a full year, as he knew an American couple who was looking for a residence for their 1-year visa.
As we looked at the very functional kitchen, the (gasp) walk-in closet (practically unheard of in France) off the master bedroom, and the sizeable terrace (also very rare in village apartments), Brian and I couldn’t believe it: it was perfect! It was exactly the size we needed. It was a very short walk from the promenade and all of the shops and the market. It was just one block from one of the village’s E-line bus stops. It was even just half a block from the village veterinarian. (Oscar and Felix’s trip to France in April is an entirely different story!) Just a few bus stops away was a large “box” store, Carrefour, where we could shop for just about anything we couldn’t get conveniently in town. Ten minutes by bus to the beach, 15 minutes to the center of Beziers. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
We asked what the rental amount would be, and we found it very reasonable. We immediately, on the spot, asked what we had to do to secure the apartment for us to rent, and a handshake with the rental agent was apparently all that was required to get the process rolling.
A bit stunned, but very excited, we left the apartment and wandered back toward the promenade. Alex and Paul suggested lunch at the Brasserie Saint Roch, right next to the café. (Read about the Brasserie Saint Roch here.) As we sat and talked, Paul used an excellent word to describe all of our reactions to the apartment: We were all “Gobsmacked!”
Not even 24 hours after arriving in France, we had secured the apartment we would need to secure our long-stay visas. No further exploration needed. Our immediate sense of relief was balanced by a surprising, unsettled feeling: the entire purpose of our foray into France was already fulfilled. We could vacation for the rest of our stay in France.
Which is exactly what we did.
***
Sérignan, France (Google Map)
More photos of Sérignan, France
All photos in this article were taken by Arthur Breur.
