The Pezenas Office in Languedoc France

Coast and Country France, French Property for sale in Languedoc from the Pezenas office

Pezenas is in the heart of Languedoc. A beautiful Renaissance town which still has most of the grand buildings where the Dukes who once governed the region held court.

For over a century Languedoc has been the largest wine producing region in Europe. The prosperity brought by agriculture and trade from the ports of Sete and Agde has resulted in many fine homes and estates in the region.

From the mountains of central France, to the rich agricultural plains of the Mediterranean coast. Languedoc offers space and a variety of scenery as stimulating or restful as anywhere in France. Blessed with a gentle climate and with an average of over 300 days of sunshine a year, protected from the winds by the mountains to the north and with the largest sandy beaches anywhere in France. Languedoc is the most popular region in France. For twelve years Montpellier, the principal town, has been voted by the French people as the town they would most like to live in.

Property in Languedoc - The South of France For centuries the region of Languedoc was a sparsely populated area of wild woodlands. The only industries were the manufacture of salt from the salt flats along the coast and vast troops of sheep and goats migrating in their hundreds of thousands from the coastal plains to the mountain grasslands each summer.

From the 13th century after the Cathars, the Troubadours and Courts of Love, until the nineteenth century when the railways and industrial revolution created a vast market for cheap wine, Languedoc remained a sleepy, sun soaked province in the real South of France. A burst of "light" in the sixteenth century Renaissance with the French Prince in Pezenas and the wonderful engineering feat of the Canal du Midi built to join the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in the 17th century brought some energy to the region, but for most of the last eight hundred years Languedoc has been by-passed by visitors in their rush to the Riviera and Italy of the "Grand Tour".

Wine production changed the landscape and the fortunes of the region. Almost overnight, from 1840 onwards landowners become very wealthy indeed and showed this by investing in larger country houses. Their estates grew and their wealth was reflected in the towns and villages of the region.

All property tended to be either large farms or country houses with surrounding buildings, or grouped tightly together in the Medieval villages and towns of the region. The reason was as much for safety as for communications. For centuries the region had been the highway for invading armies, from Hannibal to the Moors, then the crusade against the Cathars and the English of the Hundred Years War

Today this leaves a rich heritage of stone buildings with roofs made from tiles Romans would have used and thick stone walls which not only kept out invading armies, but the heat of the summer

Housing styles borrow designs from Spain, Africa, Italy and Northern Europe and the traditions of every country in the civilised world due to the many cultures and people who have come to live in the region which has been a gateway of the Mediterranean to central France since the dawn of time.

To learn more about the region and the properties we can offer you, write to me through the contact forms or phone me, Tony Tidswell at: +33 (0)4 67 11 28 65 or +33 (0)601957479 - my Skype name is Firstsearch

Coast and Country agencies are fully registered and insured in France and can help you with all your legal and financial questions. We are all English speaking and fluent in French and other European languages, many of our agents and staff are from England, Scotland, Ireland, the USA and Australia so we can give you a warm welcome when you come into one of our branches.