Where is Home?

Do you ever wonder, what is the best place to live, when you can choose what you want? That is to say, when you can choose without considering your job? You still have the usual constraints of money and closeness to friends/family. But those are fairly wide parameters, and don't dictate your circumstances the way a job can.

Anne McArthur and John Lloyd's beautiful home
in Tournus, France

We've been thinking these thoughts for a couple years, and for the last 15 months especially, while we've been footloose in Europe. Recently we met some lovely people, a British and American couple, friends of our friends Raleigh Watts and Scott LaMontagne. Anne and John have settled in eastern France near Geneva.

Are we jealous? Well, I wouldn't go so far as that, but it's pretty nice. Here are a few more pictures:

The view from the long garden in back

Raleigh, Julianne, Scott, Anne at right, in the kitchen

View from upstairs looking toward the river

Top floor, used for grandchildren's playroom,
has a fireplace, and beams for hanging tents

Ah, retirement. Where to live is a topic Julianne and I talk about, not with urgency, but with attention. We haven't had a home in quite a while. In theory we could choose any where in the world.

Say, Rome. We love Rome, and already know that if we went back, we could find a great place to live. Say, one of these neighborhoods:

Domus Aurea neighborhood condos

Garbatella neighbhorhood, south of Testaccio

Trastevere neighborhood door

Rome has been very urban, with condos for housing and cafes for socializing, for hundreds, even thousands of years. The systems and bureaucracy stagger, but somehow things always keep going. Would we like that? We were there for 5 months last winter, and had begun to make acquaintances and to have projects and goals. What about that?

As for the rest of the places we visited on this trip, how about Ireland or the UK? We share the language and met lovely people. In UK, Julianne loved Wales, but I've not been there and perhaps it's too rural after all. Here is a link: Julianne's place in Llanwnda, Pembrokeshire Wales

Kichen in Pembrokshire, Wales

London is clearly out (too expensive). As for Ireland, unfortunately it's out owing to the weather. It was so interesting, and people were so nice and also entertining. We have a common language, we keep thinking, but all that rain and wind?

In most of Europe, the logistics of migration, language problems, and our lack of a ready-made social network means that in practical terms we can visit but we can't live there. The Shengen Agreement blindsided us last year, a negative surprise. Ireland and the UK don't follow it, but much of the Continent does, reducing our capacity to settle down.

Still, we've learned a lot about how places feel, from having stayed in so many places during the last 16 months.

We can think about space, just space. We've been in crowded places and places that feel utterly spacious. John and Anne's in France, pictures above, is beautifully big.

We like light and space. On the other hand, here are a couple small ones that felt very cosy:

In Tarragona, a low roof and bight colors. We loved it.

Our place in Tarragona, Spain, south of Barcelona, had almost space enough to move around. This is living and dining, with the refrigerator thrown in. See it at our October 2014 blogpost. [This picture is more than halfway down that posting. You'll see it has a red kitchen.]

Here is our tiny place in Ballintoy, Northern Ireland. It was a laborer's cottage hundreds of years ago. It includes two bedrooms, bathroom, hall, living room and kitchen. Laundry is outside in a shed. A week for me, Julianne, and our friend Molly. It was so tight. We're good friends, thankfully.

Now let's think BIG for a minute. The most magnificent place we stayed was in Florence, a former palace cut up into flats. There were 5 of us, and our flat had four bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, long hallway, an internal patio, big dining room and a beautiful salon (living room) with Corinthian columns. The furniture was gilded, the upholstery very comfortable, the kitchen very tiny. We figured the original kitchen was in the basement in days gone by, and this was just the former service entry to the dining room.

Is it rude to mention that the so-called wifi was weak, and only available in the bathroom of the front bedroom? That the ancient furniture was rickety, and two chairs actually broke under us? The owner was a charming woman who had decamped to her country place and horses, and didn't answer the phone.

Somehow, I don't have any pictures of that place, which I regret. It was really beautiful. We really had a good time in Florence.

However, here is a runner-up, a big place in two storeys in Marseille's old section, 

In Marseille, the sunporch of a huge apartment
with hot tub, original art, and orchids

Much more modern than Florence.

And our friends Raleigh and Scott have a grand big place in Geneva, where we were delighted to catch the light for a few days.

Of course it's the penthouse, on the 7th floor. Julianne really loves the rose-colored couch.
The furniture is basically Ikea. But the place has big rooms, two balconies, everything works.

Not the end of the story, either. We are not without housing, all we have to do is go turn the key. There's a condo in Seattle and a house in Washington DC. In both places we have dear friends. The Seattle place is smaller, in a noisy, crowded neighborhood, and there's no parking for our friends. The DC place has a few disadvantages, too. Both suffer in Julianne's view by being too dark, too wet, and too cold in the winter.

Julianne's sister Kitty is thinking thoughts of Arizona, a place near the southern edge and not far from Tuscon. Sunnier, rain free mostly, warm in the winter. But then, there's the summer, 110 degrees? And we don't know anybody there? We've thought of New Mexico, but it's an outlier for us though we like the politics better, and Oregon, another less likely possibility.

So we are not settled. That's as far as I can get just now with these questions.

by Nancy, with some pictures by Julianne