I’M A BRITON WHO’S TRAVELLED THE WORLD. HERE’S WHY I CHOSE FRANCE TO RETIRE

A British former architect who spent years travelling the world has said that he and his Australian wife have settled on France to spend their retirement, citing the country’s openness to foreigners and the ease they have found fitting in.

David Gourlay, 68, from Edinburgh and his wife, Genevieve Schiemann, 67, a graphic designer from Sydney, are fulfilling their life’s dream by renovating a farmhouse in the picturesque old town of Uzès in southern France.

The couple who met many years ago in Hong Kong have travelled extensively and lived around the world, including Sydney, Jakarta and Dubai, where they spent 23 years.

Having seen half the world, they were looking for somewhere to relocate permanently for their retirement, and had narrowed it down to Italy, Portugal and France.

“We thought that Italy was too difficult to deal with the bureaucracy there, and between Portugal and France, we chose France due to personal circumstances, with some friends already in France”, Mr Gourlay tells The i Paper.

Ms Schiemann says that while looking for property in Tuscany about 20 years ago, they discovered that the Italian community did not match their needs and learning to cope with the Italian bureaucracy was too challenging.

“My experience with Italy was that they are extremely friendly but there must be an advantage for them. I think that the government has been so hopeless at actually getting anything done, that it is the sheer resilience and ingenuity of the actual people to make the country function”, she says.

“The [Italian] people are clever, creative and ingenious and that is what makes Italy and Italians amazing but it is only the Italians that know how to navigate the system. They developed a culture of protecting their own as any good mother does.”

She adds: “We found France more open to foreigners in general,” and “as a culture it is easier to navigate as a foreigner”.

The couple bought their first home near the centre of Uzès, in the Occitanie region, in 2015, lured by the warmth and relative freedom from overtourism of the Gard wine region where the town is located.

The 190-square-metre house, purchase for €160,000 (£134,490), was a shell in need of total renovation, and they spent double the purchase cost in fully restoring it to a high standard.

They are now selling it to help finance the massive renovation project of their second, much larger, property in more rural surroundings, a 10-minute walk from the centre of Uzès.

Their second property is a 700-square-metre mas (traditional farmhouse and barn) with a huge patch of land.

“We are putting a seminar-yoga-meditation-dance-multipurpose room and Gigi’s [Ms Schiemann] art studio in the barn with ample parking and landscaped grounds including swimming pool”, says Mr Gourlay.

Their plan is to hold private events, writing and artists’ retreats and cooking classes.

“The long-term goal will be to develop it into a co-housing community with like-minded people, to assist each other as we grow old,” Mr Gourlay adds.

However, they say that while buying a house in France is fairly straightforward, in the planning system there are “bureaucratic hoops to jump”.

“Our first project took about six months to get permits and then 12 months to carry out the works”, Mr Gourlay says.

The expect their new project to take about two years, and are currently nine months into the process, which they are taking it in stages for financial reasons.

Despite the long process of renovating, they love their new home of Uzès, for its welcoming community, its walkable scale, and its amenities.

“After living in many places that need to car, its such a pleasure to be able to walk everywhere. It is a very picturesque village, with very good facilities, restaurants, bars and has a wonderful farmer’s market with fresh produce,” says Mr Gourlay.

“For us Uzès has a good balance of a mixed expatriate community from various countries and French. Everybody has an interesting story to tell”.

Helpfully, they are also not affected by onerous Brexit rules that usually affect Britons, thanks to Ms Schiemann’s German passport and the fact Mr Gourlay is getting his French residency.

2025-02-22T06:31:30Z