06 December 2020

Monday in Montrichard (again)

In December 2002, we arrived in the Amboise area on a Saturday, went shopping to get some supplies for the gîte we had rented for the week, and tried to start getting over jet lag. On Sunday, we went to the big outdoor market in Amboise to get some fresh food, went back to the gîte and had lunch, and then took a long walk around the area where we were staying. Many new houses were being built on lots withing walking distance of the gîte, and a lot of older houses were nearby as well. It was interesting to look at them from the outside and talk about which ones we liked more and which one we liked less.


Our appointment with the real estate agent, whose name was Bourdais and who had said he'd be glad to show us some houses for sale around the region, was scheduled for 11 a.m. on Monday. I wrote several long posts about this process back in 2006 (here, and here). My memory was surely fresher then than now.


We drove down to Montrichard to meet the agent on Monday morning and I took some photos, as you see here. We were early — jet lag, you know. We probably had a cup of coffee in a café. The meeting went well. The agent had binders full of descriptions and photos of literally hundreds of houses that were on the market. We told him what we were looking for — how many bedrooms and bathrooms, what size living room, how big a piece of land, how close to a town or how far out in the country we would want to live. As we talked, he browsed through the binders and picked out a dozen or more properties he thought we'd like.


Montrichard is a town about the same size as Saint-Aignan. Both have populations in the three to four thousand range. Both are on the Cher river, one on the right bank and the other on the left bank, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) apart. Both are more than a thousand years old. One thing Bourdais told us was that he wanted to show us some houses around Montrichard and Saint-Aignan, because we'd get a lot more house and more land for our money in the Cher river valley than we would in the Amboise area. We were fine with that.


We were taking the whole process seriously, but I don't believe we really thought we'd end up buying a house on that first trip to the area. As the clock struck noon, Bourdais said it was lunchtime. I'll come back at two o'clock and we'll go see a few houses this afternoon, he said. That was a good sign; he was serious too. Walt and went and had lunch in a pizzeria two or three doors down from the real estate office and talked things over.


13 comments:

  1. Good morning Ken... no mention of yesterday's problems.... is all sorted now?
    Montrichard looks an attractive old town... there's a certain Loches'ness about the photos above.

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    1. Hi Le Pré, see my comments on yesterdays post...

      Have you never been to Montrichard?

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    2. Ken, no... only passed through... and now, with Pauline's Parkinson's leaving her unable to walk very far, off limits.

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  2. Hotel de Ville is pretty. Town looks nice. Wish I was there now with an onion soup and a pointe de quiche. And a glass of red.

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    1. There's plenty of good red around here. I wonder if there are restaurants that serve onion soup. Maybe there are — we so seldom go to restaurants these days. I hear California is going on lock-down again.

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    2. Yep, hard lock down. Glad to read your home search installments as a diversion!

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  3. Even though I've known all of this alteady, your talent as a writer makes it new and intriguing. Looking forward to next post or, shall we say, instalment?

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  4. I feel kind of like we're settling in to watch A Christmas Carol ... it's not the first time, but it's been a while, and the details feel fresh and new, and we're waiting to hear more :)

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  5. Glad everything got sorted yesterday. Agreeing with others that this is like reading a favorite book for the second time. I’m enjoying it as much as, if not more than, the first time. Please string it out, inundate us with details, we don’t want it to end soon!

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  6. Yes, "A Christmas Carol", but where all the characters are agreeable.
    "Monday in Montrichard" made me think of it as the title of an old movie, New Wave in grainy black and white, with perhaps Catherine Deneuve and Alain Delon, and Godard directing. (Can you tell that lockdown is getting to me?)

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    1. Yes LOL. But, strangely enough, you are not alone.

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  7. I look forward to your posts!

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