Mark wrote:I have travelled to a number of nice places in the area, but given its size I would be very interested to hear views on what the most pleasant villages/towns in Provence would be to retire to, or to have a holiday home.
No direct suggestions to offer, because Provence itself doesn't interest me as such as Languedoc-Roussillon. But I'd definitely start checking out any recommended locations with a detailed look at their weather records. The point is well made by other posters that southern France can get absolutely freezing in winter - notably because of altitude, I suppose.The following is not intended to put you off, but just to caution on the need for good research.
A friend bought a charming hillside cottage and smallholding close to Arles, for an absolute snip of a price. With one previous owner, an old lady who had drunk herself slowly to death. No piped water supply, but the broadband was amazing. It was only when the hard winter frosts started extending into May and June that my friend and his wife wondered whether they might have made a mistake? Everything they planted died of the cold. And then there were the summer forest fires to think about. And the boar hunters tramping through their land with heavy weaponry...
Another friend bought a large townhouse in an extremely attractive town a little further north, and subsequently found out to his cost that the sun quite literally didn't rise on his half of the town for four months of the year! (It just didn't make it over the mountain ridge between October and February.) That was why it was cheap. Brrrrrr!
How's your French? Acquire the habit of reading the local papers. It'll all help. There are any number of French-living UK expat websites, of course, and they're packed with useful information,
BJ