Chapter 2: The Farmhouse Illusion: How 25 Houses (and One Baguette Vending Machine) Taught Us What We Really Want From France
In the soft, rose-tinted haze of early 2024, Wolf and I set out on a pilgrimage familiar to many romantics with passports and Pinterest boards: the dream of owning a farmhouse in the French countryside. We called it our “La Vie en Rose” expedition, equal parts real estate reconnaissance and slow-living fantasy. Our target? The Southern Touraine region of the Loire Valley — a land of bike trails, medieval châteaux, and villages that seem to have stopped time somewhere around the invention of the baguette. We imagined ourselves gliding along country roads, crusty bread poking out of our bicycle baskets, past fields and stone houses and friendly cows. After discovering that Touraine was significantly cheaper than Umbria or southern Italy, we arranged viewing 25 houses within a week. What could possibly go wrong? The Airbnb That Set the Bar (Too?) High We anchored our search in Chaumussay — a tiny hamlet whose name sounded both charming and like a secret password. Our Airbnb host, Jeremy, ...
