Where is it?

La Creuse is a department in the region of Limousin, which is in central France. We are about 6-7 hours drive from Calais and about 3 hours from Paris. Direct flights to Limoges are available with Ryanair from Stansted, Liverpool, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Bristol, Bournemouth, Luton and Brussels airports and with Flybe from Southampton and Newcastle airports. For times, etc, refer to the Limoges airport website here. It is also easy to get here by rail: the main intercity line from Paris to Toulouse runs through the region and stops both in Limoges and in La Souterraine.

What's it like?

See more photos of our lovely region in our photo gallery.

	If the popular conception of rural England ever really existed, then it was like this: endless green rolling fields and woods, cattle grazing peacefully, a non-existent crime rate and a life in which time is never too precious to spend in a chat with a neighbour.
	Life in Creuse is about as big a difference to our past life in London as one can possibly imagine. We have thankfully left behind the day-after-day aggravations of traffic, pollution, stress, crime and 24-hour living.The contrast is stark. Here, traffic is mostly herds of cattle and noise comes from the abundant wildlife or next door's donkey.
	Opening hours can take a bit of getting used to: with the exception of certain supermarkets, everything shuts between noon and 2pm for lunch. Banks are closed on Mondays. In addition, certain shops, offices, etc. will have half days or other seemingly random closed periods. Such small frustrations seem to us a small price to pay for the otherwise exceptionally high quality of life, but if you are used to 24-hour city life, be warned!

How's the weather?

Like everything else around here, untamed! The area has both continental and mountainous influences and on top of that is just about where the weather systems of northern and southern France meet. Therefore, nothing can be predicted with any certainty. However, in general summers are longer, hotter and more reliable than we are used to in the UK while winters are sharper, with high pressure and cloudless skies leading to some very low temperatures but a lot of sunshine. Autumn and spring bring the wet weather and throughout the year sudden dramatic thunderstorms are not uncommon.