Best place to live!

I second that Soop. ON our first visit to your beautiful region, even allowing for the fact that it was summertime, the weather was almost tropical for all but one day of those 2 weeks. And Movedalot, even allowing for cold weather, as soon as my lottery numbers come up, I`m off to Kintyre!

And Envious, how fast you get around here depends on where you live. When we lived in Greater Manchester, just going on the bus for 8 miles into Manchester was considered somewhat of an expedition, whereas round here, with more open spaces and open roads, we think nothing of going thirty odd miles to look at a shop or shops, but then we have a car now, didn`t then. I love the sound of your home area.

Movedalot, get yourself up to Kintyre, it`s a bit remote and out of the way, but you won`t regret giving it a try.

Well number when my ship comes in I'm staying right here! I will however fly up to Scotland and then get a chauffeur to drive me to the best hotel in Kintyre so see for myself.

Envious I have to smile at your concept of our distances. I used to go 19 miles from home to work along some very bendy country roads in 40 mins at morning rush hour.

A lot of our roads are very old in origin and tend to go literally around the houses; often around what were the estates of the very rich and powerful. There are also many small roads, which used to run from little villages to markets. So progress in some places can be slow.

However a lot of these old roads and lanes go through some of our very lovely and very old towns and villages.

We have a pretty good selection of motorways and main roads though. My feeling is as we are a very small country compared with many USA states we don’t need too many very big fast roads. We haven’t got room for them without spoiling the little places. Our distances between towns are far less here that in the USA.

The Romans did a great deal for us in terms of our major road systems north and south in the first 4 centuries AD. Many modern motorways still roughly follow theses old routes

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads_in_Britain

Sorry about the tourist brochure. I have nearly surprised myself about how very fond I am of our lovely and very varied UK countryside.

I do not and I never have worked for Visit Britain.

I believe the speed limit in the USA is only 55 mph which must be unbearable on those long, straight roads across the prairies. It is 70mph on UK motorways, and about 80 mph here on French motorways.
I used to live and work in central London, and it took me 20 mins to drive the 4 miles from Chelsea to Kensington High Street.
As I live in the Alps, there is very little traffic between the small towns and remote villages.
European towns grew up organically over many centuries, so they are full of winding streets, crescents, closes, alleyways etc. unlike the grid system of the USA. I believe that makes for high winds in the town centres!

You have such wonderful places to choose from when retiring! How do you ever choose if grand kids and money don't figure into it? must be the love of the sea,or the people,or your activity level. Why live in a busy city if the country towns call your name?

We have the best roads, beyond all doubt, in the whole of the UK,, here in MK, because they were all carefully designed, all at the same time, before anything else much was built. But they can still be slow in the mornings, because the public transport is not there to take cars off the road. And because the economy is pretty good here.
Spoiled me for everywhere else in the UK really.
Invercargill in NZ has great roads - very, very wide. I think, again, they sat down and planned them before much building had taken place. It is also pretty quiet.

Most of our roads are old so we get traffic jams, sometimes up to 3 cars in front of us! It takes about 5 minutes to get anywhere around here.

We also have potholes - at least out here in the villages - which are applying for listed status as they have been there for a few winters now. On second thoughts, maybe they are MK's new low budget traffic claming measures

Ah "Jess" best to get around on but are they as pretty as some of our lovely country lanes.

Oooh! I am being a countryside romantic today. It must be the sunshine.

Looking up lots of your places,Inner Hebrides,beautiful!!Peak District what more could you want?

Ah well, road surfaces. Northern Spain's were brilliant when I was there last year. Ours will never now catch up to where they were I think what with the endless recession and 3 very snowy winters in a row.

I just love mountains - and I live about an hour away from Europe's highest. I shall be moving to New Zealand in a few years as one of my daughters and some of my grandchldren live there - but I will still be near mountains! In fact, the scenery in parts of NZ is very similar to that in this part of France - mountains, rivers, waterfalls, forests, but with the bonus of beautiful beaches.
I never get bored with my views - even driving down the valley to the supermarket still takes my breath away. We have had snow since November but there are now bare patches on the lower slopes.

There are hundreds of lovely places to live. Nearly every time we go away - whether in the UK or abroad - we start imagining what it would be like to live there.

Despite that, I quite like where I live now although it's certainly not quaint or picturesque. We are within 20 mins of the city but also have access to many miles of forestland practically on our doorstep.

My feeling is that after time, unless you actively hate where you live and yearn to be somewhere else, the apparently uninspiring places can be just as nice to come home to.

I have to say I do like where I live. It is a pretty and thriving small market town with easy road & rail access to the city and countryside/coast/airport... but odd to judge anywhere as 'best' is a bit subjective! My DD is abit cross as she lives here too and would like to move to a slightly bigger house but is now worried more London commuters will come along and up the prices!

I can remember living in a couple of places I hated - such as Salford, in the 1940's, and Central London.

I think you have summed it up Nanaej.

" My DD lives here too..."
It is people that make a place. Neighbours, local friends etc.
And to have blood nearby is the jackpot!

Wish I could say the same.

johanna

Well said Johanna.I love my area because my three children and their families all live within 10 miles of us. The new granddaughter to be born in May is especially lucky I feel. We live 10 miles away, the other grandparents live 5 miles away and when she is born she will have 7 cousins under 10 (3 different families ) who all live in the same small town 4 miles from them. Lucky baby !

We also have lots of local friends but friendly neighbours are sadly lacking. Perhaps we live in the wrong type of house.MyDD and family live in a town house and the neighbours are always looking out for each other even though the age range is very wide.

johanna I know I am very lucky as both DDs and all 4 DGC are within walking distance. DGD1 asleep upstairs as I type as she fancied a sleepover. They were all here for lunch today as my younger brother & wife came up from the south coast.

We have a busy social life independent of the family but being close makes it easy to help out at short notice etc.

We don't have family nearby unfortunately but it is still the best place to live because the people round here are so kind and friendly. I know if I had any kind of problem there would be someone to help.

Enviousamerican have a look at this:
www.google.co.uk/search?q=malvern&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_1RdUeiOHa-a0AWT-oDwAg&ved=0CGYQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643

And of course Elgar came from here!

Movedalot, you`re a one woman tourist board!

number guilty as charged! Been here nearly 4 years and still haven't got used to how great it is. As my name suggests, I've lived in several areas and this place beats them all. I could bore you for hours on the joys of living here.