Welcome to Villa Bergame

We are in our new digs at 38 Grand Rue in Juigne sur Loire.  You can see it on Google maps just outside of Angers.

We are renting from M. and Mdm. Ferron.  This was Mdm. Ferron's house growing up.  Her father had a furniture store in Paris.  He passed away when she was young, and her mother decided to move back to Juigne and buy a house. Mdm. Ferron grew up here. It holds very special memories for her.

The house is three bedrooms, two and a half bath.  There are three dining areas.  It has a clothes washer in the kitchen, and our dryer is a line in the back yard. The yard is very deep, with a number of fruit and nut trees, along with several old auxiliary buildings.  A hundred years ago a local street used to run through the yard. Rex loves the yard.

This town was developed because of its large amount of slate beds. The material was so common that it was required that all fences be built with it. M. Ferron said that after London was bombed all the roofs were rebuilt with slate from Juigne. House walls were all built with slate. If you were rich enough you would cover your outside slate walls with stucco.

This is Gary's first day of school picture. He is going to St. Augustin, a French Catholic school in Angers. His cousin Rafael goes to a school right next door to his. We carpool to school together each day. His school days are long - 8 to 5 each day except for Wednesday, which is mornings only. 

Here is Genia and Rex, at the front gate, which opens electrically with a remote.

Our mailbox! We are waiting for mail.  

Here is a picture of the front of the house with our new car - a 2005 Fiat Multipla. What we liked about the Multipla is that it seats 6 - 3 bucket seats up front, and three in back. It is our first diesel.


This is the back of the house with Tom's recumbent bike that he brought along. The green doors are our dirt floored garage. The addition on the right is the kitchen with two large patio doors that look out onto the yard and the empty helper's house.

Here is the helper's house. She was a young lady that helped Mdm. Ferron's mother while she was growing up. She is now 95. The house is empty and used for storage. Upstairs is a big attic with outside slate stairs leading up to it on the right.

The property has two Catholic prayer areas with statues that were dirty and hidden away. Genia has cleaned up both of them. Driving along the road you see a lot of crosses and sanctuaries.
 
This is walking beside the front house towards the back house and orchard. This is where the old road used to be.

Here is the back orchard with our clothes dryer.

This building used to be a goat house. 

This was another house that was towards the back of the lot.

This was the front of the boulangerie, which is across from the house.

Here is the back side of the oven at the boulangerie.

The yard extends for a substantial distance into the back.  It is heavily wooded with chestnuts. Here Rex is posing with some of the ground flowers. 

Here are Genia and Rex at the back gate.

Here Tom is closing the temporary gate to the back part of the yard, so that Rex can't escape....

Genia posing on the back patio with the Genia green patio table.

The street view in front of our house 100 years ago.

Here is the street view today.  Our house is on the right with the palm trees. (!)