Pulled in at 21:10 tonight after a long drive back from the Pyrenees.

I can’t leave Rennes les Bains though without showing you my digs for thr last few days. That’s it over there in the background, the building there with the red shutters. And my very comfortable room was the one wiht the open window.

I told the owner that I might be back later on and he gave me a card. “Give us a ring to let us know”.
Absolutely – and then they will have time to arrange a quick holiday, or to close for redecoration or the like.



But this photo will give you an idea of what Rennes les Bains is really like.
“The smoking of anything other than tobacco is strictly prohibited on the terrace”.

Rennes-les-Bains is one of these places that, for no reason at all (because house prices are not cheap like the Combrailles) seems to have attracted a huge “New-Age” community. It would do my head in after a while if I had to live here.


I followed the Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav as far as Castres and then followed the signs to Albi. And then I turned off the recommended route as I wanted to make a deviation.
Ever since 2004 when it opened, I’ve been trying to get to the Millau Viaduct and I’ve never actually managed it. Something has always cropped up.

But today in Albi I picked up the signs and even though this meant a late return home, well, here I am. Driving across the aforementioned.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take a good photo?


Anyone who knows the southern slopes of the Massif Centrale will know of Millau. There’s a major Route Nationale that runs from Bordeaux and the Biscay coast over the Lyon and Switzerland along the valley of the River Tarn, and there’s a major Route Nationale that runs north-south over the mountains between Paris and the Western Mediterranean coast of south-west France and Nothern Spain.

These two roads collide at a little roundabout in Millau and it is no joke to say that people have sat here without moving a wheel for five hours as the traffic snarls itself up well and truly.

The first time I came here I didn’t know about this. I gave up and went for a coffee. Ever since then, I’ve come at night.


All that changed in 2004.

Plans had been proposed on several occasions for a way of dealing with the traffic but ultimately they bit the bullet and set to work to build what at the time was the tallest road bridge in the world. Opened in December 2004, it turned Millau into something of a tranquil backwater, much to the relief of the residents.


It’s a magnificent structure, a maximum height of 343 metres above ground at its highest point, and one of the pillars, at a height of 245 metres, is the tallest pillar in the world.

And, incredible as it might seem, once it opened there was an outcry from certain local businesses that their takings had dropped since the building of the viaduct.

There’s no pleasing some people.


Travelling north on the A75, I stopped off to visit another iconic viaduct along the way. This time, it’s a railway viaduct, the magnificent Viaduc de Garabit, situated in Ruynes-en-Margeride in the Cantal.

And there’s not another viaduct in the world like this. It is magnificent.


Everywhere you go in this country, you only have to look at ametal structure and someone will tell you that Gustave Eiffel (he of the Tower fame) built it.

In this case they would be right for once – at least, in the general scheme of things. Inspired by the engineer Leon Boyer, it was Eiffel’s company that built it and it took four years, from 1880 to 1884 although, rather perversely, the viaduct was finished before the railway line.


It is still open for traffic too, which is quite astonishing seeing how much of France’s railway heritage has closed down, and even this was closed for a short spell a couple of years ago.

I had quite a chat with an old woman who told me that her grandfather had helped build it as a boy. She reckoned that in 5 years time the trains will have gone from here “just 3 or 4 passengers on each train – 50 years ago we had 3 or 4 hundred”. Now, there are just two passenger trains and one goods train each day in each direction.


It will be a shame if it does close down though. While you digest the view from the aforementioned lady’s back garden (with grateful thanks), I can tell you that it’s 122 metres above the base of the river and is almost 565 metres long.

And in case you are wondering (which I’m sure that you are), there are 678,768 rivets in the construction.

Since 1965 it’s a Monument Historique.


That’s not all though. The valley underneath, that of the River Truyère, was dammed by the Barrage de Grandval in 1959, for hydro-electric purposes.

But someone has pulled out the plug as you can see, much to the dismay of the boat owners and the guy who owns the water sports concession.

Not for me though. We can see the original road beidge that was drowned as the valley was flooded. I bet it’s not every day that this has seen the light.