St-Martin-de-Vers

Since March 2004, we have owned a house in France, in the little village of Saint-Martin-de-Vers, near Cahors in the Lot department.

In the picture above, it's the small house at the right (not the big tower - that's the village church, whish was fortified during the Hundred Years' War). In the photo below, our house is at the far left (but is mostly invisible behind a tree).

Our goal was to find a house we could use as a base for future visits to France and the rest of Europe, spending half the year there and the other half in California.

We spent the summer of 2009 in St-Martin-de-Vers, with trips that included Belgium, Burgundy, Auvergne, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, and the Loire valley, returning to California in late October.

Below is the house from the back garden (which obviously needed a lot of work). The ground floor includes a bedroom, utility/storage area, bathroom and wc; there also is a separate work and

storage room under the porch. The main living area (salon and corner kitchen) is on the level with the porch. On the upper floor under the eaves, there is a second bedroom.