This is not for the faint hearted

The first day of a viewing trip is less of a “romantic French getaway” and more of a high-stakes endurance sport. Between the airport sprints, the flight-cabin dehydration, and the inevitable moment the GPS decides “turn left” actually means “drive into this vineyard,” you’re usually running on caffeine and hope. After a marathon first day, we clawed back some dignity with a solid night’s sleep and hit the road again.

Our first stop? The outskirts of Auch, the capital of the Gers. It’s an area we know and love, and on paper, this property was the “One.” We even had the actual address—a rare luxury in the world of secretive French real estate—and met the agent on-site. It was time to clear our minds, channel our inner property moguls, and focus. We wound our way up a steep hill and pulled up outside an impressive maison de maître. First impressions? Stunning. Stone exterior? Check. Pretty white shutters? Check. A front door so solid it looked like it could withstand a medieval siege? Check.

We stepped into a hallway with gorgeous checkerboard tiles and a layout that actually made sense. But then, we looked closer. The interior was a pristine time capsule from the 1960s. The owners clearly had a “more is more” philosophy regarding patterns. Every room greeted us with a different, increasingly crazy wallpaper. Oddly, the house wore it well. However, two “minor” details crashed the party.

The Eternal Twilight - Despite the large windows, the house was inexplicably dark. In the grey November light, I genuinely thought the shutters were closed. They weren’t. The house was just… moody.

The Exoskeleton - More alarming was the fact that the entire house was essentially “stapled” together. The agent casually mentioned some past subsidence, which had been fixed by threading massive metal bars through every room to hold the building’s bits in place. Industrial chic? Not quite.

Outside, the “ample land” was mostly a front garden staring directly at the road, while the back—where the dream pool was supposed to go—was a steep, private cliffside. Despite the perfect curb appeal, this house was not for us!

We had no time to wallow in self pity and we had another viewing that morning near Trie-sur-Baise. Leaving the Gers for the Haute Pyrenees this time we headed for the village of Sainte-Aurence Cazeux rendezvous with the agent. We already knew that this property was a bigger project than we had previously looked at but this was reflected in the price and we felt it was worth a look.

The exterior was “pretty in a rundown way”—the kind of charm that looks great in a sepia-toned photograph but less great when you realize the roof is more of a suggestion than a structural reality. Everything needed replacing: floors, walls, electrics. The plumbing was “working,” which I suspect meant there was a bucket and a prayer involved. Even with a low price tag, the renovation budget would have required us to find a literal pot of gold in the garden. Next!

So it was another one scratched from the list and it wasn’t even lunch time yet. Not a great start to the day and we still had two more to see this afternoon.

By late morning, we were back in the Gers near Maubourguet. We viewed a longère that had been lovingly renovated. Unfortunately, the owners had been too loving with the modern updates, turning it into a functional space that lacked the soul we were hunting for. Plus, the upstairs conversion felt a bit like living in a very nice crawl space. Another one bites the dust.

With one viewing left, we punched the address into the sat nav, praying for a win. “Your destination is on the left,” the GPS announced. On our left was a beautiful white farmhouse. Perfect! Except… it wasn’t the right house. The confused (but incredibly kind) owner actually called the local Mayor to help us out. It turns out there are two villages with the exact same name in different departments. We were in the wrong one. Naturally. An hour late and chasing the sunset, we finally reached the actual property. The agent met us with a warning: “Hurry, there’s no electricity and we’re losing the light.”. “No electricity” turned out to be the highlight of the tour. The house also lacked indoor plumbing, water, some floors, most of its windows and well…. A roof! What it did have, in abundance, was termites. It wasn’t a house; it was an all-you-can-eat buffet for wood-boring insects.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, we realized the day was officially a bust. To put the cherry on top of our disappointment sundae, our first viewing for tomorrow was just cancelled because the owners got cold feet. We headed back to the hotel, exhausted, slightly traumatized by wallpaper, and wondering if the termites at least offered a good communal living experience.

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