Day 2 of the search. And even after having been through this in 2010, I clearly did not remember how punishing this could be.

Five hours of house-hunting dulls the powers of observation and analysis. But it’s the four hours of driving that takes a toll, even through relentlessly scenic southern France.

This is nothing like the suburban American concept of visiting a housing tract, seeing the four models and knowing “yes, I like” or “no, I do not like.”

On Day 2 of the Big Search, we saw places in four widely separated spots in the Languedoc: from Cuxac-d’Aude in the south to Azillanet in the west to the formidably named Caussiniojouls in the foothills to the north, and Puimisson to the east.

What we saw and observed, between long rides in the Opel while chasing our tireless agent over country roads.

—Cuxac-d’Aude. A mistake from the start. We had earlier considered broadening our search to include the Aude region, and something near to Narbonne, which was recalled as an interesting midsized city. That is how Cuxac, a southern outlier, appeared on our itinerary.

The far-flung property required nearly an hour’s driving south of our location in Castelnau-de-Guers, a journey complete with a detour into vinyards to circle around road work … and the bizarre sight (earlier) of a dozen women who were, we guessed from their attire, to be prostitutes,  stationed about a mile apart on the D609 road, and presumably shivering in a stiff breeze.

The detour took us on barely paved roads, and had no signage, and I just kept bearing west and south to what I was fairly certain would be the town, located on the north bank of the Aude River and near the Canal du Midi. When we entered what might have been suburban sprawl from the little town’s center, we stopped and asked how to get to Cuxac and were told we were, in fact, in Cuxac.

We found our agent at the appointed meeting place, at the city hall, and walked over to the home. The front door was inside an arch, which at that moment was serving as a wind tunnel, and looked at a place we instantly knew we would never buy. Just to be polite.

The place is a home on three levels located on the west side of a parking lot that another realtor had optimistically described as a “town square.” The home was hemmed in on both sides by five-story apartment buildings, and the whole town had a down-at-the-heels feel to it. Oddly, it had been this property, seen only online, that caused us to begin anew our search in France.

The inside of the house was cramped and crowded, from decades of an older couple having lived there, and it was dark and, as the Brits would say, “tatty”. I dutifully took notes, almost out of habit, and did observe that the kitchen and living room combination were fairly nice, but the rest of the house was like a warren of little bedrooms branching off zig-zagging halls, and the terrace overlooked said parking lot, and I frankly wondered how many times the older woman who lived there had been mugged.

That was the start of the day. Our agent noted that “the further south you go” the worse the economic conditions. And she couldn’t avoid a chance to note that this part of the Languedoc is particularly windy, as opposed to her neck of the woods, which is only generally windy.

She led us north and west to Azillanet, not to be confused with the little town of Azille, which can’t be more than five miles away.

Insta-verdict. A waste of four people’s time, and good luck to the owner selling that place for … anything.

—Azillanet. We had been interested by the place here because it appeared to have a sizable yard inside its gates, and because the two rooms on the ground level were of generous and regular proportions.

However, the bedrooms upstairs were cramped, and the place had only one bathroom, which is something that typically would have left this out of our reckoning entirely. Also, the “big” yard was a trick of photography or perspective. It was about half the size we expected, and probably would end up as a place to park a car. And, fatally, the whole thing was north-facing, meaning that the yard would get little direct light — same as the house, which was oriented in the same direction.

On the way back to our cars, a local guy asked our agent about the property, which apparently has been little-viewed, expressed surprise and amusement when told what the owners were asking and said it might be interesting as a place to visit in the summer but nobody sensible would ever really want to live there.

Insta-verdict. A non-starter.

So, two homes, two disasters. Our agent threw out a suggestion for a place that was out of our price range but was in excellent condition and had two beds and baths. She had not mentioned it earlier, she said, because we had been fairly insistent on basic services (groceries, bakery, butcher, cafe) being located in any town, and this one didn’t have those. The place was near to our scheduled last stop, she said, so we said, sure.

That led to a one-hour drive from west to east, through thinly populated territory of unending beauty, even in the winter, past rocky outcroppings and the remnants of forests, past hundreds of vineyards and dozens of vintners and through a couple of dozen of nearly deserted villages (and one serious town, St-Chinian), and also along a stretch of the Orb River suitable for rafting. At the end, we found ourselves climbing into the foothills, to a fairy tale town on the top of a hill, reached by a narrow and winding road through beyond acres and acres of vines. We also were thoroughly tired of driving.

—Caussiniojouls. Take a whack at pronouncing that. Your guess is as good as mine. French-Occitan, I would think. [It’s cass-in-oh-jewel]

This is the most bizarre place we have seen in southern France. A “typical French village” as imagined by Disney. The place is nearly impeccably clean, tidy, well-ordered and rebuilt. Someone had gone through the town and placed ceramic street numbers above every door, and installed (and perhaps invented) street names for the narrow, medieval centreville. (One “rue” was where the sheep were driven at night for protection from predators in the surrounding hills, according to our agent.)

The available property is just inside what were the town’s walls, and the bones of the place have to be hundreds of years old. Presumably, some commerce was conducted on the ground floor and the owners lived in two floors above, but the place had been thoroughly refinished by an English couple who clearly had great attention to detail and modern accoutrements in an ancient setting.

Ground floor: A side entrance to the building, a small open area with a table and four chairs, a fully equipped and gleaming bathroom, and a large bedroom that was, unfortunately, at the rear of the property and had no direct light. Spelunkers might have loved it.

Second floor: Main entrance, at the top of stairs, on the west. A sitting area of some size, an entertainment center, a dining table and six chairs, and a thoroughly modern kitchen with recent-vintage appliances and, behind it, another fully equipped bathroom.

(And did I mention that everything in the house, from furniture to plates to towels to the board game “Monopoly”, was included in the purchase price?)

Third floor: Up a proper staircase (with hand rail!) to the master bedroom, with natural light from the street as well as from the window-paned door leading to a terrace and a skylight. The terrace was smallish (perhaps 12 feet by 12 feet), and at the moment was windswept, but it had a nice view of the foothills. (Though the primo view would be back down into the valley.) The roof sloped over the bedroom, making it a bit tight, like the ground floor. (If you’re 6-foot-6, stay away.)

The whole place was just shockingly well-done. It was a turnkey situation, without a question. We could have moved in that day, in theory. However …

The town is tiny, barely 100 people, and very vacation-oriented, especially in the Old Town. That is, the year-round residents are particularly few in number, which explains the lack of services — though a bread truck comes through once a day, we were told.

To do anything would require a 10-minute car ride. That would be tedious, on a long-term basis. However, the place would be very very handy as a rental property, for people coming in for a week who want to take advantage of hiking and cycling over nearly empty trails and roads, and explore the various vintners in the region (including one next door in the old chateau).

Insta-verdict: Great place to visit; probably too tight for a suburban boy to deal with, late in life, and all this would be contingent on the seller dropping the price by about 15 percent. Almost certainly could rent it regularly to people from the colder parts of Europe, or from the UAE, but we’re looking to live there eventually, not rent it out.

—Puimisson. We ended Day 2 with a return to the first stop of Day 1. We thought the “fixer-upper” could be turned into something nice. We wanted to give it a closer look, and take more photos and some video.

To refresh: Four levels. Big, nearly rectangular rooms. A big terrace behind the kitchen. An outstanding view of the countryside from the top floor window, and a place in a real, living and breathing French village. The potential for a sense of community.

Alas, the place, upon closer inspection, is even further from being presentable then we had recalled. Nearly everything would have to be redone. Our agent also checked with a colleague on the recent history of the place, and it turns out that the British owner had tired of trying to fix up the old place, and had rented it out, at a cut rate, to some French people who said they would continue with renovations — but instead trashed the place. Remember the petrified mound of animal waste outside a second-floor window? The people just tossed it out the window. Whatever work they had done was substandard, and they had screwed up more … and it killed us to concede it, but to bring it up to living standards — especially at anything resembling the price the deluded owner is asking — would take at least a year, and maybe two.

Insta-verdict. After seeing eight places, one of them twice, we had no hot candidate to purchase. And we were exhausted.

(the nice one, above, the fixer-upper below)