About us

We are Jim and Pauline Craig a Scottish couple the wrong side of fifty who six years ago decided to invest in a holiday home in France. We chose a house in the small village of Barrou in Sothern Touraine ( how and why later ). We say invest as even then we had a desire to one day move here on a permanent basis. We had to look at something that might provide an income stream as we knew we couldn’t actually retire to France.  After selling up in Scotland we bought a second house to renovate in nearby Le Grand Pressigny.

We had, by this time, started to rent out our Barrou home as a holiday gite,after it had been ‘test-driven’ by some friends and family. Doing it remotely was a bit of a risk but with the help of some new found friends, in and around Barrou, we managed to successfully launch the ‘Loire Valley Experience’. This made the permanent move (May 2008 ) easier and with our new ‘project’ in le Grand Pressigny awaiting us, we made the move.
When the work on the Le Grand Pressigny house was completed, after two years, (will do a little on this on our other blog) we also offered this for rent. As we were not sure how this would book we decided to offer the Barrou house for rent as well.The plan was we would live in the one that was not booked - we shouldn't have worried! Just to make it a little more complicated we took over the management / booking of another house 'Le Bourg'  in Barrou - so now it was 'perm any one from three'!

 This blog will share with you the comings and goings of our guests who have chosen our Loire Valley houses as a base for their holiday in France.