I love living where I do in rural france because you get deer walking past the house, lots of wildlife in the garden, 10 hectare lake at the foot of the garden with a stream which winds it way round, tractors at the supermarket when it snows with family in the cab and farmers putting their shopping bags in the front loader bucket, I only ever see coppers manning speed traps and I leave all my vehicles unlocked in the yard (indeed the jcb and tractors don't even take keys) and the locals seem to know the value of being able to fix things, and keep things in service longer. Planning permission is only on exterior changes of buildings unless its a very protected graded listed building, so you can change what you like without some inspector coming round and dictating how its done, or having trenches etc left open waiting for him to arrive on his schedule.
Its not uncommon to see some vintage tractor from the 40's or 50's toiling away still, scruffy and unrestored but in working condition pulling some water bowser or running a topper, no doubt left hitched to it to save messing round with implements on the main tractor. And theres none of this having a new car to keep up with people to get the latest numberplate as the plates have no year coding, in fact my neighbors just bought a "new" car and they actively chose a older one because it was still based on stuff they could fix. Given the amount of 2cv's and renault 4's still bouncing round as workhorses and not as some sort of quirky statement, I suspect thats quite a common view. Last year we saw a r4 parked outside the mairee's with the rear seats taken out and two goats inside munching on hay and watching passers by, presumably en route to the vets for some treatment.
Ive helped neighbors get cow's hips back in with my engine hoist, used the hydraulic press to straighten bits of combine mid harvest and other typically rural bits. In return they're happy to dig small stuff with their mini digger when my old jcb is too large, unload new toys with a telehandler and fork it into the buildings etc.
In summer my neighbors one way often have soiree's where they consume wine and laugh a lot late into the evening with their friends in their (immaculate) garden, and I often see them out cycling, and theyre well into their 70's, and still having fun. Just a slower pace of life, and more focus on quality of life than money and plastic doodah's.
I think theres probably places that this sort of life happens still in the uk, in very rural parts, but it always seems to me that sort of thing is so sort after there its a preserve for the rich. Here the cities seem to be where its at, and so its cheaper to live here than in some horrible concrete jungle
I also ride a motorcycle, and the whole attitude is completely different. People move out the way for me when I come up behind them on the autoroute, or to one side on the smaller routes if Im moving faster, theres none of this deliberate blocking and people mostly practice lane discipline or rapidly get flashed out the way by others. I havent seen a "no motorcyclists" sign in a bar at all either. Complete contrast to the uk, its like Im just another person instead of some subhuman animal...
On the minus side, the business legislation and reporting systems/taxations/social charges systems are insane, everything runs on paperwork here and its a nightmare and there is no real desire to minimize that because 1 in 4 are employed to shuffle paperwork round in some capacity. Its taken us years to understand the details and we're still learning. Theres the language problem, which eases with work and time if you put the effort in and my kids are completely bilingual at 3 and 6, switching without a accent in both and the 6yo boy corrects his english teacher, which is a asset I hope they exploit in future ;)
However all this was just a happy accident, when I bought my first house here I had only ever been for a booze cruise for the beer for my wedding, in fact I committed to buy before even seeing it (my wife liked it, so who am I to argue with the boss?), it could quite as easily have been italy, somewhere in scandinavia, aus, the US, canada etc.
Its a big world out there, with a awful lot of pleasant places. I'd be tempted to do some controlled wandering if I were you. People are mostly friendly and the same species wherever you go, steer clear of big cities and expensive places and everyone gets a lot friendly when their stress level goes down
