We almost bought a castle. And, I was on TV.

Forever, I will have a fun, weird, and maybe not believable fact about myself for those icebreaker games at parties. (Caveat – I am not at all a party person, so this may be moot). In any event, back up a few years and my husband and I somehow got on the topic of how far our money would go if we decided to purchase a home somewhere other than where we live. The real estate market in our hometown is crazy expensive. Looking around the internet, did you know you can buy a castle (chateau) in France for less than a house in a lot of places? We didn’t! We decided to investigate this option. We love France. What a fun idea to buy a large plot of land with a chateau where our kids could enjoy a much different pace of life in Europe.

This idea turned serious pretty quickly. We did regular searching, connected with real estate agents, and narrowed down our search. I started up an Instagram account detailing this adventure and was contacted by a lovely lady doing a documentary about people buying old chateaus. This was mid-covid, so the whole world was in the midst of weirdness. That cabin fever sure hit hard. Did I want to go to France to be filmed looking for a chateau? Sure?! Did I want to travel during a pandemic? Errrr… Would I go anyways and drag my 16 year old daughter with me? Yup!

Also, it’s quite a sight to see yourself dubbed in German.

Long story short, in October 2021, my daughter and I boarded a place to Paris and rented a car, taking ourselves to the stunning Loire Valley. With every intention of finding a chateau, we took to looking at these properties with the possibility of finding our forever home. We were amazed at what our money could buy and just how amazing it was that we could actually buy something so historical. Being from Canada, an old, old house might be 50 years old. In France, I’m sure some of the rooms in these chateaus haven’t even been cleaned in the last 200 years.

I am a writer by nature, which means I am definitely not a spotlight seeker. I would far rather, as I am right now, be sitting behind my laptop, typing away. The thought of being on camera, of being the centre of attention, sounds like some awful form of torture. So it stands to reason it would be crazy for me to sign up for something like that. But I did. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, who says no to something exciting as this, kind of situation.

After touring a few chateaus on our own, we met up with the producer and her film and sound people. We got all set up and did a little tour of a little town in the Loire called Vitre. It was just stunning. We stayed in a hotel that was converted from an old bank and had an amazing time. We were filmed walking the streets and talking about why we would want to move from Canada to France. People were stopping an staring, which was about the strangest sensation ever.

We stopped in a little café for lunch, where all the patrons were cleared out and they made us a special meal. Side note – being a vegetarian in France felt a little like having a third eye. Certainly, it wasn’t the norm and they made us a special meal. They filmed that too. Then we were off to another chateau. This one wasn’t the chateau for us, but we learned so much!

After about 4 hours of touring this lovely chateau, we departed back to the hotel. We Facetimed my husband back in Canada and discussed the property. It was just like one of those house hunter shows that I love.

In the end, we kept looking for our dream chateau, but didn’t find the one of our dreams. Instead, we found our dream piece of land here in Canada. There were a few things about moving to France that ended up not working for us, including the ability to freely homeschool our youngest kids. It is unfortunate, but we still love France and have had the opportunity to travel there a couple more times since that trip – thankfully as a family.

Perhaps a chateau will still be in our future, but less as a primary home and more as a vacation home. One day maybe! There is nothing quite as picturesque or captivating than a French chateau. So romantic. So magical. I’m keeping my hopes strong and still dreaming about this idea.

If you’re interested in a glimpse of this documentary, it can be seen here. To fully view it, you might have to be in the EU.