Lauren, Graham is right. I moved to France after 5 years of living in and previously 15 years of visiting the city of Valencia every year, a couple of times for 6 months straight.
I wanted city life, to be in the old town of this wonderful place, right in the very heart. Every third doorway in VLC is a café, bar or restaurant.
So, a very different situation from a casita en el campo, within striking distance of beaches – tho’ VLC has a 3 km beach 35mins from the city centre on the #19/32 buses.
I moved for 4 reasons.
1] I was losing 3 months of every 12 to unbearable heat. I did not have the resources to simply decamp north for 12-14 weeks to the Biscay coast or northern FR. I was supposed to be able to do this in my camper but two years of trying revealed that re-reg of this vehicle – a self-build RHD commercial vehicle – was impossible. I lived in iso-by-climate in my flat with the a/c on. Nov and Dec are sublime, however. Good time to visit!
My original FR target area was from Tours to Poitiers, west of Châteauroux. I suddenly had the thought that that was not going to solve the heat problem. Thus my question back-along in my early days on this forum “Does your lawn look like a digestive biscuit”? I asked the question too early in the year. Everybody said ‘No’. But in Oct? Let’s see.
My reading of this topic on this forum suggests this problem is increasingly the case in FR south of the Loire.
Crikey O’Riley! I now see you talk of “a one hour walk to the sea” My reaction – either 
or 
. How about the 1 hr walk back?! Jeepers! The 10 min walk from getting off the bus from the beach, back to my flat – falling into the shower with water that in summer is never colder than tepid.
Reminds me of days on the beach at Santa Monica CA, shooting ads for Coke. Before packing up the gear – about 20-30 mins, I would start the car, turn the a/c on full. Everybody loved me for that.
2] I was never going to get to a standard of SP that I already have in FR. I got by but there were occasional humiliating incidents at brico checkouts or pharmacies. A big factor.
Fortunately I had 8 years of 3-4 hrs a week of FR by a series of excellent teachers. I have the conjugations ‘on tape’ in my head. I did try to get my head round the SP verb conjugations but at 55+ it wasn’t sticking. It all became a bit Zen. I was permanently locked into the present, like a good sadhu.
“I think tenses are a bit complicated for English speakers especially use of the subjunctive.” says Vero and she is absolutely right. Tho’ I have to say that, like English itself, mostly, I have given up on the subjunctive. Sorry, call me a linguistic heathen but there it is.
The other thing about FR, SP, DE etc is the entirely arbitary nature of gender. The one I like to quote is the totally illogical attribution of gender to the Spanish words for a chicken, ‘el pollo’ and a penis, ‘la polla’.
3] The price I am about to pay for a very habitable-now house –
double glazing all round, mains drains, on the edge of the pleasant town of Vire, with a fabulous view of the wooded valley of the Vire – would only get me little better than a campesinos’ hovel in the SP countryside. I went looking. No lekky. No mains water. Outside, a stoney wilderness. Anything more up-together – more money. Much more.
The Spanish live in cities. The properties on the Costas are very largely urbanizaciones of ‘holiday villas’. Yes, there are the ‘pueblos blancos’ of Andalusia, some of them virtually Brit colonies… and no longer cheap.
I have passed thru’ the Biarritz area many times, driving SP <> FR. I think its days as a classy destination are long gone, unless you pay top $. There’s a long sprawl along the coast and then you’re into the mountains along by Irun > San Sebastian. I don’t think I have ever driven thru’ the area when it wasn’t raining.
I have managed factor 3… Sold in SP and bought in FR with a decent wad of change to augment the meagre pension.
Factor 4. Peace and quiet and outside space for 1/3-1/4 the price in UK. Countryside like Somerset/Devon, similar weather but better. Cheaper wine! Food more expensive, I think.
As Angela Railton comments, the summers in Normandy are perfectly acceptable to those who have had enough of or do not need weeks on end of blazing sun. There must be other parts of FR similar. Tho’ the further inland you go, the colder the winters.
Once you are housed, SP is much cheaper than FR for everything. On the thread about car headlamps someone has observed that the FR are the only people who pay RRP. I agree with that. Just this afternoon a pal in the motor biz was shocked at the price I had to pay for a wiper blade – and the lack of immediate, local choice. It was Bosch or nothing.
If you become a resident of SP and are 65+ you will have access to the excellent SP NHS, free at the point of delivery, like UK. The charges for scrips are 1/4 – 1/5 of what I pay here – pennies.
See the comprehensive info on this site regarding the FR health system. And be prepared to shell out.