Viaduc Millau - 19 May 2008

 

This visit was certainly further afield, made easy because my friend, Bub, hired a car for four days! 

 

Our first excursion was to drive south-west out of Montpellier towards Béziers, a beautiful mediaeval city that I’d visited the year before with Kate and her family, and we'd loved.  We skirted round the north of the city and made our way towards Mazamet, Castres and Toulouse, although our destination was Revel, a few kilometers south-west of Castres. 

 

One of Bub’s cousins had invited us to visit and stay the night.  They’ve moved to the town from their original home in Hampshire, and totally immersed themselves and their three sons into the French way of life.  All the boys are now completely bi-lingual and, after only four years in France, are all in the top 5% of their classes.  Very impressive.  We had a fabulous visit with them and learned lots about the area, life in France, education and food! 

 

The next day we set off northwards through Castres and Albi and turned east just south of Rodez, towards Millau.  Our aim was to see the Viaduc de Millau, an astonishing structure that’s been built to connect Béziers to Paris.  One of the designers of the Viaduc de Millau was an Englishman, Lord Foster.  It is 343 metres high to the top of the pylons, 270 metres to the road height.  The road is 2460 metres long and weighs 36,000 tonnes.  If you add the weight of the pylons, it’s 205,000 tonnes for the whole lot. 

 

 

Below it is a beautiful gorge dotted with charming pink stone villages and the town of Millau itself, situated on the River Tarn. All the houses are that delightful terracotta colour which seems to emanate from the earth itself – a very, warm, deep pink.

 

 

 

 

We took the road back from Millau to Montpellier passing alongside part of the Massif Centrale.  The range of mountains soared above the car and there were several warnings to beware of falling rocks!  Fortunately we didn’t see any actually falling!