On 27th September, a removal truck will pull up outside the building in Berlin Neukölln I currently call home, and into it will go my belongings. My time in Berlin will be over.
I’ll race ahead of the truck in a train, and from that evening Ravières (population: 719) in Bourgogne, France will be my residence.
What the hell am I doing, leaving the best place I have ever lived, and heading for a village in the middle of nowhere?
It starts in the COVID years. Living in a flat in Berlin through that period was a strain (and, so as to have more space, moving from Kreuzberg to Neukölln didn’t help the Berlin experience either), and life in the city has never really been the same since. Big political events? They make me feel uneasy as COVID still hasn’t gone away. Music concerts? Forget it.
So my partner and I sought an escape. We had a small budget – €100000 total – to buy something in the countryside, and that was the total for purchase and to make it liveable. We wanted to go to a place we spoke the language (so that meant English, German, French or Dutch), a place you can be based without a car, and a place you can reach within one day by public transport from Berlin. The idea was that it would not be just a holiday place, but somewhere to spend up to half of the year. A place where working from home would also be possible.
The only places we could have found in Germany are places where politically you would not want to go, so that led us swiftly to eastern France, where property is cheap but public transport connections are generally horrid unless you live in a big city. But Ravières – 2km from the station Nuits-sous-Ravières on the old Paris-Dijon ligne impériale – was workable. 6 trains a day to Paris (2 hours 15 mins direct 6 times a day, or 1 hour 20 mins with a change in Montbard) and 12 trains a day to Dijon (in 40 minutes) is solid by French regional rail standards. A larger supermarket is 10km away, but the cycle route there is flat along the towpath of the Canal de Bourgogne. Yonne – the département where Ravières is located – has an amazing policy on the roll out of fibre optic internet, so from May this year we have a lightning fast internet connection too.
For just over €70000 in February 2022, a 120m2 house with 60m2 of outdoor space, liveable immediately (although slightly retro), was ours.
So began a two year period of back and forth between Berlin and Ravières, and never-ending headaches of always being in the wrong place and trying to find people to sub-let or house-sit one or other place. During that period we have managed to mostly clear out the house in Ravières (that was full of things from the previous owners), build a new bathroom, and renovate the entire first floor. DIY at this intensity is not really my idea of fun, but needs must. At least there will be space for four guests to come and stay.
But why the move? In November 2023 with my abject failure to make any headway in German politics, and a new professional opportunity for my partner to work permanently from somewhere outside Germany, we faced the choice: should we move permanently to Ravières?
And the answer, with a very heavy heart, is yes.
The main reason: money.
I earn very, very little from my railway advocacy work – definitely not enough to pay my share of the rent in Berlin without finding someone to sub-let when a flat were empty. And keeping on cross-subsidising rail advocacy from EU communications work is not really an option either.
So it was a pretty stark choice: find some sort of regular job, or abandon Berlin. The latter won out.
In theory I will be able to focus more relentlessly on my railway work, come up with new projects in the future, and maybe even write a book about railways (lots of people have told me I ought to do this, but honestly the idea fills me with fear). But then I will be doing that in a country with a borderline malevolent state owned railway company and in a région – Bourgogne-Franche-Comté – that cannot get even the basics of its regional railways sorted out. And while I have my gripes about German politics, I at least understand it, while French politics I have always found off putting. The danger is I find myself personally, professionally and politically isolated in Ravières.
When I moved to Berlin in 2013, this is what I wrote:
Berlin is my favourite city. Nothing else comes close. It has the brilliance of a big city, without the downsides of London. It’s liberal and also (relatively) organised. It’s both historic and modern. It’s a city where you can find absurdity and tranquillity within a few metres of each other. It’s a place that after all these years visiting still excites me, still gives me a spring in my step.
Those words are still true. And, unfortunately, Ravières neither excites me, nor gives me a spring in my step.
Fingers crossed this works out.
Very sorry to hear the move is being done with a heavy heart although I completely understand the reasons and feel much the same. I frequently spend an hour or two looking on LeBoncoin in a month and imagine being able to actually afford something outright. A career working for good causes and a divorce has left me fairly broke. Although I normally look around Les Vosges as it is a handy distance to get back to Brussels in that I could buy a relatively antiquated EV and make the trip. Alas, with two kids and split custody such a move isn’t in the cards. So know that even if the move is with a heavy heart, at least there is one person who is envious of it! What are your prospects at getting back? As in to Berlin, Brussels or elsewhere? Are you at all concerned that by accepting a low income/low cost life now you won’t ever be afford to make different choices in the future?
We searched in Vosges as well, but the public transport connections were too lousy to make it viable really. Have you checked the French Ardennes (south of Givet)? In our search we found a few viable places there!
Prospects of getting back to Berlin: slim. Brussels: perhaps a little higher, not least as railway ticketing is on the agenda to be fixed in the next Commission term. But yes, I am concerned that I am putting myself in a career dead end in Ravières, because there is absolutely nothing in the village connected to the work I want to do, and indeed no one I can even talk to about work-related things. It’s more that than the financial side of it.
I hadn’t looked there previously but I have now. Givet would definitely be an intriguing possibility with a regular bus to Dinant (and hell, you could float on the river back again). But with the kids realistically I don’t see it happening. It’s more of a wish than a plan.
I definitely wish you the best of luck – the career dead end worries me but in theory it shouldn’t preclude a move away if that’s what you wanted. I’m actually a bit shocked it’s been 11 years already since you left Brussels.
My employer is based in Besancon so next time I am there I will see about going via Dijon and maybe we can meet up.
Dear Jon! Sad to see you leave Berlin. I do wish you all the best for your future endeavours, on private, professional and of course political levels. One question, though. You wrote: “The only places we could have found in Germany are places where politically you would not want to go”. While I can relate to that, do you really think the French countryside is any better in that regard? When I look at how many over there voted RN, I do have serious doubts.
It’s a legitimate question, and one we grappled with.
1) RN is not as bad as AfD, just.
2) France is not our country somehow (or not yet anyway) – the unpleasantness of RN is somehow less visceral.
So this is sort of the flip side of my estrangement from French politics – maybe that distance, with regard to this, even helps a little?
Best of luck with your future plans. I live on the Vienne Charente border and consider France as on balance one of the nicest countries to live in.
Hopefully the pluses will grow on you too.
Sorry to see you leave Germany, and with such a heavy heart.Hope the move goes well, and that life Bourgogne starts looking more attractive once you settle in.
Are you still a British citizen? If so, do you face any issues moving from one EU country to another due to Brexit?
I am also a German citizen. So I am moving to France as a German, not as a Brit.