Where can you find a solid stone village house of 1,400 square feet, ready to move into, for $84,000? Your neighbors make a world-famous white wine, and on your doorstep is a nature reserve and one of Europe’s last wild rivers. And Paris is an easy hour-and-a-half drive away. Yet few people—even the French—have heard of this little-known corner of Burgundy that has big-value properties at bargain prices.
I’m talking about the Nièvre department in France, bordered to the west by the Loire river, to the south by the start of the Auvergne mountains, with the vineyards of Beaune and Chablis to the east and north. This is an area worth visiting not just for the wine alone, but also for the property gems hidden here. I’ve been exploring the region since April 2007, and have been so taken with what I’ve found that I decided to buy a house here. Let me tell you what I’ve discovered.
With the middle reaches of the Loire river forming a natural border to the west—perfect for canoeing, fishing, and bird-watching—and a secret area of lakes, ancient forests, and old mountains called the Morvan to the east, it’s a region of natural reserves and beauty. It’s what you might call the green Burgundy, as the climate is milder in winter than where the famous red wines are produced. To the south is the Formula 1 racetrack at Magny-Cours and the old-world charm of the spa town of Saint-Honoré-les-Bains.
NEED TO KNOW
Best time to visit
In spring for the flowers, summer for the weather, fall for the changing colors of the trees and wine harvesting. Winter can be cold and damp with the Morvan regularly cut off by snow, but summers are generally sunny and warm.
Getting there from Paris
Cosne is roughly a 90-minute drive southeast of Paris via the A6 then A7 highways. Direct trains from Paris Gare de Lyon station take two hours. A one-way trip costs from $37 (second class).
Where to stay
In Cosne:
Le Vieux Relais (three star), 11 rue St-Agnan, 58200 Cosne-sur-Loire; tel. +33 (0)38628-2021; website: www.le-vieux-relais.fr. From: $100 a night.
Hôtel St. Christophe (two star), 5 Place de la Gare,58200 Cosne-sur-Loire; tel. +33 (0)38628-0201. From $50 a night.
In Pouilly sur Loire:
The best value and homeliest welcome is at the Ecu de France, 64 Rue Waldeck Rousseau, 58150 Pouilly sur Loire; tel. +33(0)38639-1097. From: $54 a night. It also has a restaurant with unbeatable fixed-price menus with copious servings from $10.
What to eat
Burgundy is known throughout France not just for its quality wines, but also for its sensual cuisine, often featuring a strong vin de Bourgogne. Typical dishes in this part of Burgundy include: coq au vin (a rooster that has been stewed in wine for hours until tender); boeuf bourgignon, of course; plump local snails served in garlicky butter; Charolais beef; free-range Bresse chicken; oeufs en meurette (eggs poached in red wine); jambon persillé (terrine of ham with parsley); and trout.
What to drink
Burgundy wine, naturellement; Giennois table wines (red, white, or rosé); Pouilly Fumé white wine, made with sauvignon grapes and Pouilly sur Loire white wine, made with chasselas grapes. Pouilly Fumé producers to try: Edmond Figeat, Cédric Bardin, and Guy Champeau.
Where to eat
L’Auberge de la Poule Noire,Place des Pêcheurs, La Charité sur Loire; tel. +33(0)3 8670-1071.
What to see
The medieval center of the town of Donzy, for its immaculately preserved exposed timber beams, lively shopping, and award-winning duck paté and foie gras.
Pouilly sur Loire, at the western-most edge of the region, for its wine, location on the Loire, and lack of commercialism.
La Charité sur Loire for its ancient monastery, church, high-roofed houses, and bookshops.
There are few major cities, adding to its rustic charm—Nevers is the regional capital with all the amenities you need, while Cosne is a lively market town, and Charité sur Loire is a cultural stop. The Nièvre is an area that merits a slow tour, to be savored like one of the fine wines here, as there are so many tranquil or quirky villages to discover, woods to wander, and canals and rivers to follow.
The people are friendly and of an independent mind, not as conservative as the folk making the famous red wines in the region. Although slow to warm, they’ve been unfailingly helpful and patient since my first trip here. I’ve come across villages with an active cultural program such as Nannay and Donzy (offering wine shows, book fairs, film festivals, and garden fêtes), dynamic wine production like Raveau and Pouilly sur Loire, others with an outgoing Dutch community, and many with regular yard-sale-type events throughout the year—this part of the country doesn’t die in winter. Yet the Nièvre has still to be discovered by tourists and its historic sites are only just starting to be restored and opened to the public. You won’t find any pristine-but-soulless museum towns here—only places where ordinary folk live and work and play.
Since buying here, I continue to be charmed by the authentic simplicity of the area. Friends who come to visit are amazed by the constantly changing sandy banks and beaches of the Loire, the warmth of the people, as well as the hearty food (and fine wine). Property prices are also attractive, even in the prettiest villages.
As a rule of thumb, the cheapest properties are old houses in town or village centers, as they tend to come with little, if any, land. One place with a particularly high number of bargain properties is Clamecy. The question is, would you want to live here? This is a town that thrived on the logging trade, with barges picking up the trunks and timber here to take back to Paris on the canal. Sadly, nothing seems to have replaced this activity, and it seems like a town about to retire from the world. You could certainly pick up a three-bedroom downtown house for less than $70,000 in good condition, but personally I find a lack of bustle and dynamism here.
I prefer places that have a life of their own, rather than depending on tourism, so I started my house hunt looking in and around Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye in the north of the region. This is where there are a number of active potteries. The enfant terrible of French literature at the turn of the last century, Colette, grew up nearby and describes her childhood in Claudine at School in glowing terms. It’s a leafy, quiet place, and the earthenware made here is big business. I like this town a lot, as it’s alive even outside of summer, and has a good bus service and all the basics in the center—café, bakery, grocer’s, plus sports facilities. Just outside the village are a few hillside hamlets that give fabulous views of the rolling countryside. And the motorway is just 10 minutes away, with an easy drive to Paris.
You can buy a two-bedroom farmhouse in the area for $112,000, ready to live in—with a quarter-acre of land and a vast barn to convert. This is just one of many properties that Hexagone Immobilier has on its books. See:www.agence-hexagone.com. Transaxia (www.transaxia-cosne-sur-loire.com) also has several, including a three-bedroom townhouse built in 1824 with enclosed garden in Saint Amand for $130,000.
The nearby villages of Bouhy, Bitry, and Ciez are also charming, each with their own little café or bakery by an ancient ivy-clad church at their center, surrounded by weathered stone cottages, tidy farmhouses, and compact smallholdings. But for more creature comforts, head for the market town of Cosne.
If you want to live the good life in the heart of the vineyards, just 90 minutes’ drive from the capital, with all the amenities you need, then Cosne (pronounced “cone”) is for you. This is a town where you can find everything, from specialty cheese shops to a mall, a wide range of restaurants, cafés and stores, a hospital, library, cinema, and bowling alley, in a region with three different wines. You can rent a home from $490 a month here or buy a two-bedroom house near the Loire river for $90,000.
At this time of year, the stalls are piled high with grapes, apples, and more than five types of pears, including the juicy “Butter Hardy.” Next to the stands of fresh goat cheese from across the river, the four seasons stalls now offer earthy cepes and girolles mushrooms to go with your local Charolais steak. Butchers hand out slivers of ham or squares of toast with paté to tempt you, and the lazy can pick an easy lunch of spit-roasted farm chicken (from $7) or quail, with a helping of hot roasted potatoes. And the smell of roast chestnuts is never far.
After lunch, you can stroll along the river to watch the bird life, go fishing, take a trip in a special flat-bottomed Loire boat or hire a canoe, visit one of the quirky museums in town, or do a spot of shopping downtown. Just outside town a number of hypermarkets, DIY stores, and other outlets vie for your custom.
The Art Deco cinema, the Eden, shows the latest movies and hosts debates with directors and actors every month or so—Catherine Deneuve is the patron and you might see her during the fall film festival and book fair here. And in the evening, you can eat out from $10, from French haute cuisine, to plain home cooking, pancakes, pizzas, and spicy northern African cuisine.
Prices start at $56,000 for a one-bedroom apartment downtown through Century 21 (www.century21ducreux.com). This apartment is ready to move into, with property and local taxes coming to less than $335 a year. Houses start at just under $70,000. I saw one cottage with its own garden near the center for $69,000 just needing a fresh lick of paint, through Donzy Immobilier (www.seloger.com). My favorite, however, is a cute Art Deco two-bedroom home with cellar for $90,800 through the local Century 21 office. Madame Jeannot from the agency showed me some good value houses in and around Cosne. One is a bright 1,076-square-foot village house near Sancerre with three bedrooms, fireplaces, two cellars, a terrace, and a garden for $112,000—property tax for this house is less than $140 per year. If you want to try before you buy, Cosne monthly rentals start at $490 for a studio.
Country towns like Cosne are worth looking into if you don’t want to be too remote. Cosne has everything to hand, but also a good train service to Paris, just 112 miles away. And there’s even a branch of the French town network AVF for newcomers—be they from Paris or Ohio—to help them settle in. AVF; Le Vieux Château, 10 rue Alphonse Baudin, 58200 Cosne; tel. +33(0)386-281-501.
What won my heart, however—and savings—was a lively village with its own wine, the village of Pouilly sur Loire. I fell for a 19th-century stone village house with a vaulted cellar, a large garden, and a few surviving vines. From here, I can walk to the banks of the Loire in just two minutes to watch the cormorants or geese. I can buy fresh bread, croissants, or the best strawberry tarts in the world here, do my basic shopping and banking, see a doctor and get drugs from one of two pharmacies, and even see a movie. In the morning I can buy a French or English paper from the newsagents, have tea or coffee in one of the cafés and decide, from the fixed menus outside, which restaurant to have lunch at. Broadband Internet is easy to set up and there are health clubs, dance, and art classes held every week. Plus, I can buy a bottle of Pouilly Fumé from one of my neighbors for half what it’s sold for elsewhere.
The village is growing, despite a high number of elderly residents, as young families are moving in to build new houses on the outskirts (the local kindergarten and junior schools have growing classes), so I’m not worried about my bakeries and pharmacies closing down. Population figures are something that you should check if you want to live in the country but don’t want a ghost town, as rural depopulation is one of the biggest causes of low house prices.
Pouilly seems to be doing well, and the fact that most French people prefer new houses to old is what’s contributing to the low property prices. Homes here start at around $57,000, the price of a simple one-bedroom cottage built of local stone, with a large stone fireplace, an attic to convert, an old stable, a workshop, and a small mature garden. Or how about a two-bedroom village house of more than 700 square feet, with cellar, garage, and a decent-sized yard with a typical marquise—the elegant glass protection over the front door? No fixing up needed here; it’s ready and waiting, for $86,600. Both through Transaxia; tel. +33(0)38639-0970; e-mail: pouilly.transaxia@orange.fr; website: www.transaxia-pouilly-sur-loire.com.
Further up the Loire is la Charité sur Loire, a town that’s making a name for itself for its bookshops, independent publishers, printers, and bookbinders. If I wasn’t interested in having a garden of my own, I would’ve bought here, as houses are good value and there’s plenty to do with all the book fairs, concerts, and markets, not to mention a delightful red wine—Côteaux Charitois—and my favorite restaurant, the Black Hen (Auberge de la Poule Noire).
You can find old townhouses from as little as $34,950—to fix up—or $65,700 for a place to walk right into and unpack.
Farther south and east are even more villages and countryside to explore—but that’s another story.
