A much nicer day weather-wise today, thank goodness, which made everything seem so much
easier; I’d heard that there had been a big storm in the S of France and that part of the autoroute we would travel on was closed due to a section of it being washed away. I researched as much as I could, but found no real news and certainly none of any practical value. We really wanted to cross the Tarn Gorge on the Millau Bridge – a marvel of design and engineering which we’d seen several times on TV but never actually experienced, so having weighed up the much longer alternatives, we decided to stick to the original plan.


The further south we got, the better the weather and consequently the views – hilltop villages and distant mountains - until we were approaching that famous bridge. The first views are enticing, quick reveals of a huge, stylish structure and we parked in the visitor centre car park so we could see the whole thing. It was designed by the renowned British architect Norman Foster, and made Millau famous not for its traffic jams, but for the highest bridge in the world.


A path leads up to a viewpoint which gives wonderful views of the bridge – a marvellous
structure spanning the Tarn Gorge and sparkling white in the sun; the TV programmes didn’t do it justice, and we were really impressed by the sight. A little (large!) piece of British design gracing the French countryside and we nabbed a passing German to take our picture with that wonderful edifice behind us.


The VC had a nice display of its construction so we had a look round, then it was time to carry on our journey southwards, starting with actually crossing the bridge. Its almost as good to be on it amongst those white shiny cables as it was to see it from the viewpoint, & I was very pleased that I managed to capture a shot of the car, caravan & bridge in the car mirror.


South of Millau our satnav told us to come off the A75, but we chose to ignore it....to our cost, as we came to a grinding halt along with all the other traffic just 9km after it told us to exit. We queued for nearly half an hour to get off at the exit, but once we were off, the traffic flowed along quite nicely – until we came to the hole in the autoroute, at which everyone, including us, slowed to gawp. It was huge, the full width of the southbound carriageway and about 8m long, a devastating effect of the dreadful storm that washed it away. To add insult to injury, the northbound lanes were completely free-flowing, but there was nothing we could do. Anyway, the road soon led us back onto the autoroute we continued on our way.


Our halt for the night was at Camping de la Vallée at St Jean Pla de Courts near Le Boulou,
just north of the border with Spain. It was a nice site just outside the village (I’d done a good job so far in finding good places to stay!), with flat sandy pitches separated by trees and a clean facilities block, which is one of my requisites. We engaged the mover to manoeuvre into position, to the mystification of a passing French lady who looked at us standing around while
the caravan apparently parked itself. After a few incredulous looks whilst nearly dropping her washing up bowl, she exclaimed, “C’est magique!” and told us she’d never seen anything like it in all her 30 years of caravanning. Strike one for us Brits!