Although our house is thirty minutes from the Mediterranean coast I actually prefer the Atlantic. It might not be as warm but what it lacks in climate it makes up for in views, diversity and the sea pounding against the rocks. There is a tide, so
A week after I first arrived in France to live permanently, I was walking down the road in the little village that was to be our home in the Alsace, for four years. This village is called Leyman and it is on the Swiss border, which was very convenient as I was operating out of Basel Airport at that time.
I have spent most of my life charging around the world in the front of aeroplanesI have been in and out of war zones, been chased by Russian Migs and had to deal with hurricanes; tornados and waterspouts. I have had engines blow up in flight, and have had to fix a broken aeroplane with rebel troops about to take over the airfield.
FINDING OURSELVES on our own, we went out for Christmas lunch, probably for the first time ever. Most of our favourite restaurants close during the winter, but our old friend Gilbert in the next village keeps the French gastronomic flag flying win
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes is converted without much of a struggle . . .
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes discovers what makes the French so French
France is more class ridden than Britain, and where you end up buying says a lot about who you are.
If you think that by moving to France you can escape class-ridden England, you are wrong. It is true that the French have cultivated an air
The French coast runs for some 5,500 kilometres. The landscape is incredibly varied; there are the sandy beaches of the Languedoc, the rocky shores of Normandy and Brittany, the cliffs of the Riviera and the marshes of the Camargue. Each region ha