For jazz lovers, one of these three locations in Normandy, Loire-Atlantique and Gascony could be ideal, says Carolyn Reynier
My youngest brother loves jazz and yearns to buy a home in France, so this is for him! I’ll be looking at property in and around three great French jazz festival venues. Firstly, Jazz sous les pommiers takes place from 4 to 11 May 2024 in Coutances in Manche, Normandy. This is a land of Cotentin cider, inland bocage and coastal villages.
Further south in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, you can enjoy Les Rendez-vous de l’Erdre from 26 August to 1 September. Listen to jazz on the quays of Nantes and in 14 villages along the River Erdre and Nantes-Brest canal while admiring la belle plaisance – pleasure boating, flotillas of small elegant boats (some of them historic monuments).
We end our journey in Gers, Occitanie, land of foie gras, armagnac, and the famous Jazz in Marciac festival (18 July to 4 August 2024). This bastide town in southern Gascony – a ‘commune slow et engagée’ and also a Station Verte (the top French ecotourism label) – is not far from mountains and ocean. We have lots to see, so let’s get going!
NORMANDY
Coutances was badly bombed during the Second World War, says Didier Lemariey of Cabinet Faudais. What remains of the ancient town centre lies within three roads below the cathedral built on a hillock. Narrow lanes and pavements run down between small, old stone, slate-roofed, terraced houses, often making access on foot and by car difficult. If you want to buy a house in the historic centre – some have a small rear garden – prices are around €2,000/m 2 . You’ll pay the same for a 50m 2 apartment in one of the post-war apartment blocks close to the cathedral.
If you prefer the bocage, that quintessential Norman landscape of hedged farmland, consider Monthuchon, Gratot and Bricqueville-la-Blouette. The region is not expensive compared with the rest of France, Didier says: “You can find presentable houses here with two or three bedrooms for under €200,000.” Many clients can no longer cope with the heat elsewhere and don’t want to be too far from Paris or the sea. True, this demand puts up prices “but we’re still very, very reasonable”. Coutances has a dynamic long-term let market. You can easily invest in €100,000–€130,000 properties and will have no problem renting them out, he says.
Coutances is a lively little town of fewer than 8,500 inhabitants with a railway station and shops and services you’d expect in much larger towns. Relative to its size, it has the highest student population in the department with various general lycées. The townsfolk are very involved with Jazz sous
