After two years in Barjac, we realise that we are becoming quite attached to it. Both to the town and to the region. That’s how long it takes to know whether you like a place or not. And little by little, we are learning to express that attachment!
To begin with, there are the friends we have made here and who have become dear to us. Some of them are French (“locals”, local residents and owners of shops, restaurants and other businesses here), but some are also Dutch, Belgian, English and Swiss who, like us, have come to live here. Unlike in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, where we tended to avoid contact with other Dutch people rather than seek it out, here we actually enjoy getting to know former compatriots, of the kind we would sooner or later have become friends with had they lived in Amsterdam too. A dozen of them are now part of our immediate circle of friends: Cees and Dorien from Nîmes, on whose advice we settled in this region, and Roos and Paul (the latter has sadly since passed away), from whom we were able to rent the house in Barjac, but also Bernard (a fellow countryman AND one of the local GPs!) and his wife Clara, Max (a retired police officer) and Rosalien, Femke (a former colleague of Peter’s cousin Dave) and her boyfriend Ruben, just to mention a few. Each and every one of these people is a reason not to move away.
Then there is the entertainment and amusement of Barjac. Although it is a small town, there is plenty of ‘bustle’ for much of the year, sometimes even a little too much (when the biannual antique market takes place, for example, or during the holiday season in July and August; during those periods, we’d settle for ‘a little less…’). There are ten restaurants in the centre (all within walking distance), most of which are open at least six months of the year, some even all year round. There are also a few coffee terraces and a real “café”. And there are dozens of places to eat in the immediate vicinity. So there’s plenty to do!
Barjac is very special in terms of landscape and climate: if you drive ten minutes in any of the four directions, you will find yourself in a landscape that is completely different from the other three directions! In a very short time, you can swap the Gorges de l’Ardèche for the mountains of the Cévennes or the scrubland plains of the ‘Carrigues’, and also leave the lowlands and drive to the peaks of Mont-Bouquet, or follow the ‘défilé’ of the Ardèche, or cross one of the countless ‘ponts submersibles’, the bridges that sometimes disappear completely under water. And on top of all that, Barjac is located WITHIN the famous crescent-shaped area where a Mediterranean climate prevails, but OUTSIDE the main flow of the Mistral and the Tramontane, the two prevailing winds.
In terms of our “base”, we have taken a slight step backwards compared to Nîmes: that city is located right on the A9 and A54 motorways (towards Spain and Italy) and close to the A7, A-8 and A-75 (to Lyon, Nice and Clermont-Ferrand), making it easy to reach distant destinations; from Barjac it always takes at least an hour of “winding” before you reach a motorway. There are few traffic jams, but still…
IFrom our house, the village – or town, as they say here – is within walking distance: it takes ten minutes to walk to the restaurants, terraces, market square and town hall. It’s a bit of a climb, but that’s good for our condition, isn’t it? Anyway, Peter and I cover that distance at least once a day, sometimes two or three times.
A final, recent reason not to leave Barjac behind is the fact that the town has had its own GP again since a few weeks now! In the increasing “healthcare desert” that France is becoming (just like the Netherlands, we understand), it is a relief to have a local GP on hand. Admittedly, ‘Dr Bernard’ helped us out in a pleasant and very professional manner, but we sometimes found it difficult to have to call on someone we saw more as a friend than a GP, even though he himself never wanted to hear about any objections.
In short: five good reasons to try to stay here!