Millau - Wednesday 27 August 2008

Millau was the town we originally picked as our base before we found the Carlipa house. In hindsight Millau would have been a better choice being a bigger town with a lot more things to do.

This unbelieveble bridge (viaduc) at Millau was designed by a British architect. It's 7 needle-like pylons support 2.5 km of 4 lane motorway. It rises 343m above the bottom of the valley. At a distance it looks like the bridge is up among the clouds. It cost 4 million euros to build and carried over 4 million cars in the year it opened 2005. We paid a toll of 7 euros for the privilege of going over it before we realised we'd missed our turnoff which was just before the bridge and we ended up going over it twice.

After we found a hotel, Andrew and the kids braved the hotel pool which was icy cold. Then we wandered down to the river Tarn which flows through Millau. There is a walking path and we paddled in to the shallow area which was rocky and had a bit of slimy furry stuff covering the rocks (my favourite). Samuel was straight in there looking for fish and crabs and anything else he could find. He was getting rocks and adding them to the little weir that was built up across the water. He was having a ball.

The kids are unimpressed by the stunning scenery on our driving trips. When I asked Ella what she thought of France so far, she replied that she didn’t think there would be so many trees.