France Information
The Languedoc Roussillon region of Southern France curves in a great arc around the Mediterranean, from Robert Louis Stevens' beloved Cevennes down as far as the Pyrenees and the border with Spain. The region offers magnificent scenery, clean, uncrowded beaches with warm seas, excellent skiing & other recreational facilities, a richly diverse culture (and a cuisine to match!), quiet roads, ready access, and a climate which boasts the highest annual sunshine average in France. 
Access really is surprisingly easy
The area upon which Rural Retreats focuses particular attention - encompasing the Herault, Aude and Pyrenees-Orientales departements - is well-served by FIVE international airports - Toulouse (the fastest-growing 'hub' in Europe), Montpellier, Carcassonne & Perpignan in France itself, plus nearby Barcelona in Catalan Spain, currently one of the cheapest means of entry for travellers from Northern Europe and other departure points.
Then there is the super-fast TGV rail service from Paris which whisks you to the Med in under 4 hours and is scheduled to extend as far as Barcelona and Madrid within a few short years.
For the motorist, driving is still a pleasure in France with its extensive road network and relatively uncrowded autoroutes making short work of the distances involved. When route-planning, choose between the western A62/61 via Toulouse, the central and nearly-completed A7 (offering the shortest route from north to south via Paris and currently toll-free for much of the way), or the more easterly A9 by way of Lyons, although perhaps best avoided during the worst of the winter months due to its proximity to the Alps. Car hire rates in the Languedoc are generally lower if the reservation is made outside France. Better still, pick up a car just over the border in Spain which is still one of the least expensive locations for vehicle hire in Western Europe.
History & Culture
The Languedoc has a distinct character all of its own, quite unlike anywhere else in France. For instance, it has its own language, the langue d'oc, and for centuries enjoyed considerable independance from Paris under the courtly influence of the local Counts of Toulouse and Foix.
Indeed, had not the heretical Cather movement of the 10th & 11th centuries not so panicked the Church of Rome into signing a bloody accord with the King of the Ile de France to 'eliminate' this perceived threat to Catholic influence in the region, then we might all have been speaking Oc rather than French to this day!
As it is, the patois of the Midi with its origins rooted in Catalan Spanish is often as incomprehensible to a northern Frenchman as it is to a true 'foreigner', and Oc music & poetry has experienced a renaissance in the last twenty years as regionalism and self-identity has re-established itself with Toulouse at its centre.
Economy & Development
For decades the Languedoc has slumbered under the hot Mediterranean sun, a backwater where un-employment and under-employment were the norm. Now, whilst it would be misleading to talk of an economic boom, the Midi is nevertheless awakening and stretching itself as relatively new and diverse industries, including telecommunications, computers, air & space transport, eco-tourism and an ever-widening leisure market, establish themselves alongside more traditional pursuits such as wine-production, wine-production, wine-production, .........and more wine production.
Greater freedom of movement, early-retirement, EC-expansion have all meant that more and more people are looking to the South of France, and the Languedoc in particular, as a place to live as well as holiday in. Montpellier is the fastest-growing town of its size in France, and just two year's ago the French Government published the results of an independent survey showing that the Languedoc could expect a population increase over the next twenty years of 30% - easily the largest rise of all the regions of France - thereby reversing the decline in numbers and the desertification that has characterised the Languedoc during much of this century.
Education & Health
Post-War French governments of both left and right have seen it as in the country's interest to keep small, and particularly rural, communities alive by subsidising production and maintaining social services, even where cost-effectiveness might have decreed their abolition.
The result is that France has more communes per head of population than any country in Europe, and whilst this may be of dubious merit from a monetarist's viewpoint, it has meant that most villages of any size have their own 'town' hall, post office and primary school, plus a local transport system of sorts.
Also, and somewhat paradoxically, this 'poorest' and presently under-populated region of France has some of the best hospitals in the country (Toulouse enjoys world-renown for its advancement of heart surgery and treatment of coronary conditions whilst Montpellier University boasts the oldest and one of the largest medical faculties in Europe). And doubtless to the consternation of Paris, because of its mild climate and indisputable quality of life, general practitioners have flocked to the south with the result that the doctor-patient ratios in most areas of the Languedoc are amongst the highest in the country.