Advertisement
Australia markets closed
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • ASX 200

    7,896.90
    +77.30 (+0.99%)
     
  • AUD/USD

    0.6514
    -0.0004 (-0.06%)
     
  • OIL

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • Bitcoin AUD

    108,532.08
    +1,454.76 (+1.36%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • AUD/EUR

    0.6037
    +0.0002 (+0.04%)
     
  • AUD/NZD

    1.0904
    +0.0002 (+0.02%)
     
  • NZX 50

    12,105.29
    +94.63 (+0.79%)
     
  • NASDAQ

    18,254.69
    -26.15 (-0.14%)
     
  • FTSE

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • Dow Jones

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • DAX

    18,492.49
    +15.40 (+0.08%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,407.39
    +239.32 (+0.60%)
     

How to Afford Retirement in Paris

How to Afford Retirement in Paris

Living in Paris, the world's most beautiful, romantic city, would be a dream come true for many. But retire to Paris? Who could possibly afford that?

In fact, retirement in Paris is a more realistic idea now than it's been in a long time, thanks to the dollar's strength versus the euro. Even so, central Paris, where many retirees would settle given the chance and the choice, couldn't be described as a bargain retirement option. Maybe you couldn't afford to live here year-round, but what about spending part of each year in the City of Light?

Paris is an ideal place to consider for part-time retirement overseas, an increasingly common choice among expat retirees. Invest in your own pied-a-terre in this city (the down euro makes this a good time to consider such a purchase), and you could rent it out when you're not using it yourself. Pair Paris with a more affordable choice (somewhere in the Americas, for example), bolster your retirement nest egg with revenue from your cash-flowing rental apartment and, voilà, Paris could be temptingly within reach.

Specifically, consider the city's Marais district.

ADVERTISEMENT

Le Marais literally means "the marsh," and that is exactly what this Parisian neighborhood was one thousand years ago. Today, the Marais is one of Paris' most trendy and desirable neighborhoods, the hub of the gay community in the city and home to many restaurants, cafes and boutiques, many of which stay open on Sundays, which is unusual in this country.

Narrow cobblestone streets, exposed stone and beamed buildings with slanted walls and rooflines are a common sight -- a testament to the Marais' history. This part of Paris retains much of the medieval character that was bulldozed in the 19th and 20th centuries for bigger and better structures in other sections of the city.

To live in the Marais is to live in the heart -- geographic, cultural, historical, architectural and social -- of this city that is considered by many to be ground zero of refined Western culture. The Paris of literature and movies, this is life in the Marais, a neighborhood with an excess of historical sites and museums, including the Place des Vosges, the rue des Rosiers and the historic Jewish quarter, the Pompidou Center, the Picasso Museum, the National Archives, the Carnavalet Museum and the Hôtel de Ville. Within a 20-minute walk are Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, La Conciergerie, the Pantheon, the Louvre and countless other iconic landmarks. For access to the heart of Paris, there is no better location.

Paris is divided into 20 administrative districts, or arrondissements, each with its own distinct history and culture and each spiraling outward in numerical order from the nucleus. The neighborhood known as Le Marais is composed of the 4th arrondissement to the south and the 3rd arrondissement to the north, which combined cover less than three square kilometers of Paris' 87 square kilometers held together by the boulevard péripherque or "beltway." Three square kilometers makes the district roughly the size of New York City's Central Park.

The Marais is a choice location in Paris, and Paris is an ideal base for exploring both France and all of Europe. Living in the Marais, you wouldn't need a car. In fact, owning a car in this neighborhood would be a liability. Finding parking is a challenge, and the cost of paying for parking would far exceed the cost of an occasional car rental.

But who needs a car when you've got the world's best Metro on your doorstep? By Metro or bus, nothing within the city walls is more than 30 to 45 minutes away, and, at home in the Marais, most places you'd go from day to day would be accessible on foot.

Based in the Marais, weekend travel possibilities would be practically unlimited. The Marais' Gare de Lyon means ready TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, or high-speed train) service to the South of France. Door to door from the Marais, you could be in Burgundy in less than three hours or Avignon, Aix-en-Provence or Marseille in less than four.

The Marais offers arguably the best of both worlds for expat residents -- the ability to toggle between an Anglophone "home away from home" and a true experience of La France. Roughly a quarter of the Marais' population was born outside metropolitan France, so, as an expat living in this neighborhood, you would not be alone. This is one part of Paris where you hear English spoken in the streets, cafes and restaurants. The expat community here is not only sizable but also organized. Few cities have as strong and as established Anglophone expat communities as Paris.

This expat community includes many Americans, as evidenced by the fact that the Marais is home to the "Thanksgiving" store, a shop on rue Saint-Paul that carries American products you won't find in Paris supermarkets, including everything you'd need to replicate an authentic American Thanksgiving dinner (Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Jiffy corn muffin mix, Stove Top stuffing, etc.). You can even order a precooked turkey.

Kathleen Peddicord is the founder of the Live and Invest Overseas publishing group.



More From US News & World Report