Not for the faint hearted!

Monday 28th May

We woke this morning to rain and thunder and lightning and the forecast was for rain all day. Not a good day to be looking at views but that was what was on the agenda.

The plans for our day changed last night when we picked up a couple of brochures in the hotel. Firstly, we'd seen a program on tv at home about building some of the world's best bridges, and one of them, the Viaduc du Millau was only 50k up the road; not quite the planned direction, but hey, why not? I let Dora choose the roads out of town - big mistake. She took us via a very narrow and winding road. It looks ok on a map because in one inch of road you can't see the 7365 bends and the up hill and down dale,  or the width of the road, and of course what goes up must come down which is the bit I hate. The only thing that pleased me was the Col ouvert (pass open) sign as we headed up the mountain.

Pretty impressive to come around the corner and there it is in front of you.
Viaduc du Millau - tallest pylon 343m, length 2,400m in 8 spans.
Height above ground 270m. Cost 320million euro +.

Sorry photos aren't great but it was raining
and taken through car windscreen.

Another brochure, and another detour to a place called Cirque de Navacelles. Absolutely amazing! Photos just won't do this place justice. We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the 'crater' as the fog and cloud moved in and out. Just stunning. After lunch we drove down to the bottom - down 300m via another very narrow and winding road. So glad we didn't meet anything coming the other way because someone was going to have to back up.

This 'crater' has been created over thousands of years via water erosion
from the Vis river that flows through here.
It has left a small patch of arable land
which is the only fertile land for miles around.
This is in the middle of 'national park' type land.

View from the viewpoint at the top looking down 300m.

This is a view back on the road as we headed up the other side.
There is one road going in that is actually 2 way
but so narrow you'd have to back up if another car came.
We drove down hugging the corners, then out the road
that goes up the other side which is slightly wider.

This is the tiny village at the bottom
- a long way to go when you run out of milk.
A lovely waterfall on the Vis river.
There was someone there fishing but I'm guessing he was a local
because it's a heck of a long way to go for a feed of fish.

I've read up a bit on this since we went there yesterday and glad I didn't read it before we went. A lot of websites suggest not driving in because of the dangerous road, but I'm not a walker, so drive or nothing for me. It was a miserable day but the French love a good walk and there were lots of them about. And those who don't walk ride pushbikes and there were lots of those on the road too.

From here it was on to Nimes, our next overnight stop. Dora did it again, every bitumenised narrow goat track in sight was the road she picked. Average speed over the 80k left to travel was almost down around the 30kph - thankfully that picked up after around 40k and we were on almost straight, and wider roads.