Living in or near Honfleur, France

November 6, 2009 1:44 AM

I'm moving to France (not to paint houses)! Two big questions: Where to live while working in Honfleur? What should I buy in Japan or the US before moving, to take advantage of better prices?

LIVING in Honfleur should be different than being a tourist. It was great as a tourist! But will I be bored silly living there? Should I stay in Le Havre or even Rouen? For work I should be out of the office ~50% of the time anyway. I am in my 20s, single, prefer an international, urban environment, and like access to food, sports, universities, public transport. I reckon a car is unavoidable.

DESPITE your and my own advice to move with as little as possible, the employer will pay shipping, and I have an advantage on prices on some things in Japan and the US. Should I ship my bicycle (mountain bike)? Go on a clothes spree? Am I forgetting anything?? Electronics are not an option (110-220 issue).

(This is as sudden, but more definite and more exciting than the previous Qatar option...)

posted by whatzit to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

In terms of shipping, I had the same deal when I emigrated. In the UK at least they can and will try to impose duty on relatively new items. If you've acquired stuff immediately before your trip its best to remove any labels or identifying information, otherwise they might think you're planning to resell. If you can clearly prove "for personal use" you're generally ok, but stuff that is new and still in boxes / wrapping material weakens your argument.

I was ok but a buddy brought in a bunch of household and kitchen goods (knives, pots & pans, not sure what else) purchased brand new in New York for use in England and got whacked with import duty.
posted by Mutant at 2:09 AM on November 6

I can't answer the question about Honfleur, but my wife and I moved to Belgium from the US last year. We shipped a bunch of cooking stuff -- good pots and pans, cookbooks, knives -- clothes, electronics, and several bikes. Normally if you can prove that you are moving to Europe and not just visiting, there won't be any problem with import duty.

With the exception of a few things like Levis, clothes here are a little more expensive than in the US, but the cost of shipping probably balances out any benefit of buying clothes in the US. Electronics are much cheaper in the US, and we basically never buy anything electronic here. For 90% of electronics -- pretty much all but mechanical devices -- the voltage difference doesn't matter, they can adjust to whatever input they get. Definitely consider buying any electronics you think you might want in the US before you come over.

Bikes are expensive to ship, so unless your bike is relatively high-end, I'd say just leave it and buy something in Europe. Including the cost of shipping, you won't save any money by bringing a bike with you from the US. That's a start. Feel free to email me if you have some specific questions about our experience that I can help with.
posted by dseaton at 2:33 AM on November 6

I can't give you advice on Honfleur either, but I can very, very heartily recommend Lyon (for a visit, or a longer stay). I'm in hurry right now but if you want to hear some more praise on my favorite french town - feel free to contact me.
posted by mathiu at 3:08 AM on November 6

I've heard so-so stories about Le Havre, which sounds industrial from what friends who've lived there say, whereas people are more enthused about Rouen. I do work with French people from those cities, but I've never been myself, so take that with a grain of salt.

You probably won't need a car. Public transportation here is excellent and cheap. I live on the opposite side of France (in Nice), and pay 15 euros per month for my bus card to and from work. 60km round trip, actual cost is 30 and my company reimburses half since it's for my work commute. Your company will probably do this too - most French companies do. Trains are cheap too, you can check rates for regional trains on TER-SNCF.com. More and more cities are getting tram lines and setting up public bicycling schemes too, such as Paris' Vélib', Lyon's Vélo'V, and Nice's VéloBleu. For a cheap yearly subscription (25 euros/year in Nice), you get something like a first half-hour free, then it's 1 euro per subsequent half-hour (on the same bike - if you give back a bike within the first half-hour, then take a different one later, the clock is reset).

You can find cheap clothes here in France! There are loads of low- and mid-priced clothing stores here. At the low end, there are no-name places with dresses for 10 euros, fun blouses for 5 and such. Then there are H&M, Xara, Esprit, and French names such as Camaiëu, Etam, and others I've forgotten (because I go there so rarely). I see you're a woman - the reason I go to French-name stores so little is that, being a tall, mountain-biking American woman myself, well, French women are generally more petite and thin-legged. My calves are too thick for the thighs (yeah...) on French trousers that are otherwise in my size *sigh*. You can get fitted cotton t-shirts at H&M for 7-10 euros, pants and blouses for 15-25, jackets anywhere from 20 to 100 euros depending on cut and quality. For jeans, I've found Esprit to be the best in terms of price-quality ratio.

For your bicycle, it depends on what quality it is - keep in mind, France is home to... the Tour de France! And has quite a few mountain biking champions (Anne-Caroline Chausson, Sabrina Jonnier, Julien Absalon, Nicolas Vouilloz). There is a very wide selection of mountain bikes here, generally with a good price-quality ratio. It really depends on how old your bike is, the shape it's in, and how much you paid for it. If it's a pretty good bike, have it shipped; otherwise, consider going to a dedicated cycling store once in France. Cycle shop owners here are totally passionate about matching people with the right bike for them, and won't oversell. Plus they'll be able to direct you to clubs and the best places to ride! I got a great deal on a two-year-old GT idrive XC 2.0, full suspension, three years ago (1800 euros instead of the 2500 original price, plus they threw in a free bib-short and jersey), and it still works beautifully. Regular checkups, for brake pads, suspension etc. only run about 20 euros, the most I've paid yet was 50 when I had to have my chain replaced. Big-box sports stores like Décathlon and Go Sport are all right, but push their own bikes (Décathlon's mid- and high-range MTBs are quite okay, though friends of mine with them do run into more problems than I've ever had with my GT) and have a smaller selection for accessories.
posted by fraula at 6:26 AM on November 6

I should probably mention that my bike is at the upper end of the prices here - there are lower-priced ones in dedicated cycling stores. I gave it as an example mainly to show how you can find older, still-new (unused) bikes at good discounts from that sort of store. On the other hand, big-box sports stores don't really do that.
posted by fraula at 6:49 AM on November 6

French here (but Parisian, heh).

Seconding most of what fraula said: keep to Honfleur if you want a pretty place to live, or Rouen if you want a little more nightlife.

Le Havre is indeed industrial, and while most of the city has been wiped out by the bombings during WW2, it's been almost entirely rebuilt using concrete (even got a Unesco mention for it...). It's not *ugly*, just less pretty than the other two.

Car is indeed avoidable, unless you plan to drive through the country every week-end. Even so, there are a lot of car rental compagnies, which should keep you from having to find a parking space every time you go back home, or pay for one on a monthly basis.
posted by XiBe at 8:22 AM on November 6

EVERYONE has indicated that I should be looking at living outside of Honfleur. I'm leaning towards Rouen at the moment, but need to do research.

And no, the car is a given. AFAICT, Honfleur has no train station of its own. More, the place where I will be working is definitely in the sticks. (Heck, I live in Japan, now, and the first thing I did HERE was buy a car, too. Whooda thunk it? Never owned a car in the States, NEED them in Japan and France.)

Bicycle will stay in Japan despite shipping costs being covered. You all are thinking a much higher end bike than I have. It is nice, but not THAT nice!

Thanks!
posted by whatzit at 7:07 PM on November 10