Where’s Colin? He’s in a car park just above the village of Peyres, which is about 6km up the valley from Millau.
The municipality of Rodez has been so kind as to create a 5km (official length; actually 5.5km) walk/cycle route along the river, across a bridge and back along the other side. I ran that loop first thing this morning and even on such a damp, grey day it was a very pleasant (if undulating!) path. The autumn colours made up, in part, for the lack of a blue sky.
Employing our general principle that if a town has gone to the trouble of providing an Aire then you should make an effort to go and take a look around, we walked the half an hour up the hill this morning to reach the main square and the cathedral.
[image_1
The latter didn't sound particularly worth a visit in the Rough Guide, but we went in anyway (it's free, so why not?) and were surprised to find not only the magnificent oak-carved organ mentioned in the guidebook...
...but (more interestingly) the unmentioned modern stained glass forming quite a few of the windows, of which this is just one example:
Coffees in a cafe across the road (where the TVs were tuned to a news channel featuring primarily footage of Donald Trump) preceded a very quick shufty around the older part of town, before we headed back down the hill.
It was lunchtime by the time we arrived dripping back at Colin; the rain, which had been forecast to last the whole day, had hit during our return walk (earlier we had got away with just light showers). At least the only foray needed outside again at that point was a quick visit to the service point as we left (water tap on, but toilet drain blocked at this one).
Millau was our next point of interest, although not for the town itself, but for the viaduct which carries the short section of toll road which bypasses the town. The name of the town wasn't familiar to me, but as soon as I read about it I remembered the opening of that viaduct being in the news, as it's the tallest in the world.
This photo taken from our car park doesn't do justice to the scale of it
Moreover, just up the road is an interesting-sounding village, with a car park which overlooks both the bridge and the picturesque valley, and where it's possible to park overnight. The weather on arrival wasn't clement enough to tempt us to sample the 5km walking circuit through the village, but tomorrow is due to be fine so that's on the agenda for the morning.
The municipality of Rodez has been so kind as to create a 5km (official length; actually 5.5km) walk/cycle route along the river, across a bridge and back along the other side. I ran that loop first thing this morning and even on such a damp, grey day it was a very pleasant (if undulating!) path. The autumn colours made up, in part, for the lack of a blue sky.
Employing our general principle that if a town has gone to the trouble of providing an Aire then you should make an effort to go and take a look around, we walked the half an hour up the hill this morning to reach the main square and the cathedral.
[image_1
The latter didn't sound particularly worth a visit in the Rough Guide, but we went in anyway (it's free, so why not?) and were surprised to find not only the magnificent oak-carved organ mentioned in the guidebook...
...but (more interestingly) the unmentioned modern stained glass forming quite a few of the windows, of which this is just one example:
Coffees in a cafe across the road (where the TVs were tuned to a news channel featuring primarily footage of Donald Trump) preceded a very quick shufty around the older part of town, before we headed back down the hill.
It was lunchtime by the time we arrived dripping back at Colin; the rain, which had been forecast to last the whole day, had hit during our return walk (earlier we had got away with just light showers). At least the only foray needed outside again at that point was a quick visit to the service point as we left (water tap on, but toilet drain blocked at this one).
Millau was our next point of interest, although not for the town itself, but for the viaduct which carries the short section of toll road which bypasses the town. The name of the town wasn't familiar to me, but as soon as I read about it I remembered the opening of that viaduct being in the news, as it's the tallest in the world.
This photo taken from our car park doesn't do justice to the scale of it
Moreover, just up the road is an interesting-sounding village, with a car park which overlooks both the bridge and the picturesque valley, and where it's possible to park overnight. The weather on arrival wasn't clement enough to tempt us to sample the 5km walking circuit through the village, but tomorrow is due to be fine so that's on the agenda for the morning.
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