Please help me plan our exploratory trip to plan a retirement-in-Europe second home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I throw in Malta? We just visited and absolutely loved it. It’s one of the few countries where you can buy citizenship through investment. I don’t imagine that we’d truly live there for retirement— mostly just use it as a long term vacation location. We’d buy a place and we’d use it with family and friends throughout the year. Big expat community.

I mostly want the EU passport. We are seriously considering it.

Thanks, yes, we were thinking about Malta also. We want to be accessible to visitors, and that's why we are a little shy about moving to Malta, Mallorca, or another island that's just a little more difficult for family and friends to reach.

French PP again. Malta is socially conservative and barely qualifies as a democracy. Abortion is criminalized, society is very patriarchal, etc. I would not like living there for months of the year. If I invest in a pied-a-terre somewhere, I would like to feel some level of connection with my neighbors. While I am Catholic, I'm not an ultra-traditionalist sort of Catholic

OP is unlikely to need an abortion, if retirement age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I throw in Malta? We just visited and absolutely loved it. It’s one of the few countries where you can buy citizenship through investment. I don’t imagine that we’d truly live there for retirement— mostly just use it as a long term vacation location. We’d buy a place and we’d use it with family and friends throughout the year. Big expat community.

I mostly want the EU passport. We are seriously considering it.

Thanks, yes, we were thinking about Malta also. We want to be accessible to visitors, and that's why we are a little shy about moving to Malta, Mallorca, or another island that's just a little more difficult for family and friends to reach.

French PP again. Malta is socially conservative and barely qualifies as a democracy. Abortion is criminalized, society is very patriarchal, etc. I would not like living there for months of the year. If I invest in a pied-a-terre somewhere, I would like to feel some level of connection with my neighbors. While I am Catholic, I'm not an ultra-traditionalist sort of Catholic

OP is unlikely to need an abortion, if retirement age.

Please tell me you understand that's not the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm French and would love to buy a little French chateau to the west of Paris, easy car ride to the coast of Normandy. I saw one during the pandemic that was really cute, but DH wasn't on board. (Yes, I know all about maintenance.)

Here's one...
https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/loches-france/loire-valley-sumptuous-and-powerful-18th-century-chateau-47-hectares-15th-century-keep-15378257

Thanks for the belly laugh. How much is that in U.S. dollars?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what you are looking for in terms of experience. DH and I have considered this and looked at Lille and Ghent. Very affordable by US standards and Lille is appealing because of ease of traveling throughout EU. Ghent is less convenient but we have family in Belgium and prefer it to Brussels. I am on the fence about Antwerp. I also love Strasburg, but I think we'd get bored there.

I won't do Spain, Portugal, or southern France because of the heat. I'd like to explore Germany a bit more to see if that's a better fit. Looking at Hamburg.

Don't know if this is useful to you though because I don't know what you prioritize. But these places would likely fit your budget and none are rural.

German here.

Hamburg is a great city, but it is rainy. And overcast. Always. Just so you know.

It's grey. Did I mention rainy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm French and would love to buy a little French chateau to the west of Paris, easy car ride to the coast of Normandy. I saw one during the pandemic that was really cute, but DH wasn't on board. (Yes, I know all about maintenance.)

Here's one...
https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/loches-france/loire-valley-sumptuous-and-powerful-18th-century-chateau-47-hectares-15th-century-keep-15378257

Thanks for the belly laugh. How much is that in U.S. dollars?

$1,425,268 do you not recognize the symbol in front of the numbers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I spent a few weeks in Nice a couple of years ago, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed being there. Granted, it wasn't July or August and swarming with tourists. But really relaxing and a quick drive to so much. Would we get tired of it, I wonder? I was thinking we'd check out Villefranche-sur-Mer so as not to be smack dab in Nice but a very quick drive in.

Villefranche is gorgeous in the summer. Fairly depresssing the rest of the year. I think you need to revisit these places in the shoulder seasons, too. Maybe Lyon?
Palma is ok but over run w/ package tour groups in the summer. There are some cute, small towns on Mallorca, but it’s desolate in the colder months. Maybe just a coastal suburb of Barcelona?

There are loads of nice little towns around that area. Since you're not planning on living there full time, spring and fall are also nice. Winter, not so much. Grey and a bit rainy.

I agree that Lyon is a good choice, especially if you're a skier.

I also wouldn't discount Austria and Germany, particularly if you're not going to learn the language. They will at least speak English much better than the French and be less annoyed by your attempts at German.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the original Malta poster -- sorry I derailed the thread a bit.

Switzerland is truly my fantasy retirement country. It's beautiful every season and the health care system is great. You can get everywhere by train. And the the French, German and Italian regions are all really different.

But it is very difficult to get citizenship and it's not part of the EU. The Swiss are also not very welcoming to outsiders and I'm not sure how strong the ex-pat community is.

The main reason we would consider Malta is EU citizenship. We could even get it for our grown children. We have just started to look into it -- still a bit of a fantasy for us right now. Everyone speaks English, which is great because the Maltese language is challenging. The other challenging thing is that they drive on the British side of the road. I'm sure that we could learn it pretty easily, but it might be hard for friends and family who would visit.

Malta recently tightened its rules and no longer grants easily. I've been and it's a nice country but there's not that much too do and islands have a cooped up feel imo (not just Malta) and are more annoying if you want to travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very hard to answer as it’s so specific to your tastes! Finding a community of people who will accept you (not that people will be horrible to you anywhere, but realistically you are mostly going to be friends with expats) is going to be the hardest part and you’d need a bigger town for that. I would also say that most people who do this already have the place in mind, so I think you need to do much more research - as in, many more trips - before you should even think about buying. Having owned a home in France for a long time, there are so many things that are still surprising and unexpected, and that is with having spent 1-4 months of my life there every year since I was a child!

+1 OP don't discount how difficult it will be to move somewhere in your 50's and become a part of the community. Some small, charming town is going to be more insular and other 50-somethings who lived there their whole lives aren't going to open their social circles to you. Compounding that difficulty is living there only 4 months per year.

Plus how do you plan to maintain the home the other 8 months each year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

OP doesn't need your snarky advice, she posted in shorthand on an anonymous message board. We all know what well-traveled means and if you think she is only well-traveled for an American, so what? This is DCUM, most of us are American.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the timeline? Can you wait? The anti-American sentiment is incredibly strong right now all over Europe - European here. It's borderline hate.

Do.you have evidence of that directed to actual individuals? Have a few friends who have gone over the last few months, said it was fine. Sure may have gotten a couple of comments about Trump, etc, but not directed at them in any way, and only in passing. Other posts here have said the same.

This is the problem with Americans, 100% delulu. You have at least 2 Europeans here telling you that everyone can't stand you and you say it's fine because someone traveled for a week there. Of course it was fine, they want you to spend your money and gtfo.

Why are you hanging out on an American message board with the deluded, then? Sounds like somebody likes us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

OP doesn't need your snarky advice, she posted in shorthand on an anonymous message board. We all know what well-traveled means and if you think she is only well-traveled for an American, so what? This is DCUM, most of us are American.

PP here. Please, by all means, educate us. What does “well traveled” mean to an American? Florida plus Bahamas? .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

OP doesn't need your snarky advice, she posted in shorthand on an anonymous message board. We all know what well-traveled means and if you think she is only well-traveled for an American, so what? This is DCUM, most of us are American.

PP here. Please, by all means, educate us. What does “well traveled” mean to an American? Florida plus Bahamas? .

Are you asking for a geography lesson of Europe v the United Statea?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

OP doesn't need your snarky advice, she posted in shorthand on an anonymous message board. We all know what well-traveled means and if you think she is only well-traveled for an American, so what? This is DCUM, most of us are American.

PP here. Please, by all means, educate us. What does “well traveled” mean to an American? Florida plus Bahamas? .

Are you asking for a geography lesson of Europe v the United Statea?

I’m not sure what you’re asking. Visiting US States is not like visiting European countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

OP doesn't need your snarky advice, she posted in shorthand on an anonymous message board. We all know what well-traveled means and if you think she is only well-traveled for an American, so what? This is DCUM, most of us are American.

PP here. Please, by all means, educate us. What does “well traveled” mean to an American? Florida plus Bahamas? .

Np Why are hanging around us Americans then? Just hang around your cool Europeans! And also, I think you can figure it out what 'well traveled' means. After all you are superior, right? Why do you need stupid Americans to explain anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:European here. Word of advice OP: don’t tell people in Europe that you’re “extremely well traveled traveled.” That would be social suicide and exactly the type of braggadocious behavior we’ve come to expect from Americans. And compared to us, I guarantee you’re not well traveled anyway. Maybe by American standards. Also don’t discount the difficulties you will have with language acquisition over the age of 50. I see Americans here all the time bumbling around with absolutely unintelligible Spanish and French. You don’t want to be that person.

NP. I've seen more of France than many of my French relatives. They go to the same few places (grandma's house) and don't tour around much.