![\"viaduc](\"http:\/\/www.lesguis.com\/images\/1402\/1402037.jpg\")
<\/a>I’m not there either – although I was earlier this evening. This is the Viaduc de la Roche-Taillende, colloquially known as the Viaduc des Rochers Noirs, and it’s near the town of Lapleau in the Corr\u00e8ze.<\/p>\nYou may not think it looking at that tight curve to enter the viaduct, but I’m actually standing on the bed of a disaffected railway line. It’s another one of these metre-gauge tacots<\/em>, or “rattletraps”, a narrow-gauge railway line similar to the one that we’ve seen at Marcillat-en-Combraille in the Allier, but this one ran between Ussel and Tulle in the Corr\u00e8ze.<\/p>\n There was a speed limit of 15kph on the line which is hardly surprising given the tightness of the curve, and also the fact that we have a suspension bridge which is quite a rare type of construction for a railway bridge.<\/p>\n Until 2006 you could actually drive through there in a car but unfortunately the Conseil D\u00e9partementale<\/em> has put a stop to all of that.<\/p>\n I merely contented myself with taking a few pictures – there wasn’t anything more that I could do unfortunately.<\/p>\n This photo does show you the lengths that they had to go in order to build the viaduct and it’s hard to think that this line didn’t open until 1913, by which time it had effectively already outlived its effectiveness with the coming of the motor-bus but nevertheless it struggled on until as recently as 1960, which is quite an achievement for a metre-gauge tacot<\/em>.<\/p>\n The viaduct spans the Gorge de la Luz\u00e8ge at a height of 92 metres, or 126 metres if you count the pylons, so I’m quite high up and the view of the gorge is amazing.<\/p>\n It’s a shame that the weather was so dreadful though – it’s been raining non-stop and I’ve forgotten to bring a raincoat with me.<\/p>\n Serves me right.<\/p>\n Apart from the snow that I encountered, the plateau is famous in that it was effectively a “Free French” area during World War II. There is a great deal of resistance souvenirs in the area, including this plaque to commemorate the parachuting-in of members of the 3rd Regiment SAS who organised the French Resistance in the turbulent times after D-Day.<\/p>\n There are poignant souvenirs too – memorials to victims of the occasional sweeps by the Gestapo and also the town of Tulle itself just a short drive away, where the Das Reich<\/em> Panzer Division of the SS strung up almost 100 locals from lamp-posts in the centre of the town as a form of reprisal for terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n I saw a sign that said Ruines les Cars<\/em> and with Cars<\/em> being French for the kind of coaches that I drove when I worked for Shearings, I went for a look to see what it was all about, but instead I found myself in the middle of a Roman villa and huge Temple from the 2nd Century AD.<\/p>\n Of course, you are not allowed to say “Roman Remains” here in France. Everything has to be “Gallo-Roman” because the French don’t accept (rightly or wrongly, I dunno) that the French civilisation of the turn of the Common Era was any less inferior than the Roman civilisation, and I’ve seen some healthy fights at some of these archaeological meetings that I sometimes go to.<\/p>\n<\/a>Just like chez<\/em> Liz and Terry, the railway disappears off into a tunnel on the other side of the river, but that is all fenced off.<\/p>\n<\/a>I did however go for a little bit of a climb and I was glad that I did, because the view from up on a rocky outcrop towering a couple of hundred feet above the viaduct was stunning, to say the least, even if it did wear me out climbing up to here.<\/p>\n<\/a>While I was up here I took a few photos of the stunning scenery.<\/p>\n<\/a>Coming here brought me (via<\/em> the Pionsat Post Office to post C\u00e9cile’s letters) over the Plateau de Millevaches on the border between the Creuze and Corr\u00e8ze.<\/p>\n<\/a>And that’s not all either.<\/p>\n