So long Berlin. I’m off to a Bourgogne village

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.

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