Millau

The Bursledon blog has been on autopilot for the past couple of weeks while we were on holiday.

We stayed in a small coastal town in the Languedoc region in the South of France. Our journey there took us across the “Massive Central”, at the southern end of which lies the Millau Bridge.

We’ve driven over it several times but always in poor weather conditions, rain or low cloud or at night. This time however we got to see the bridge in spectacular early morning sunlight.



At the deepest point the valley floor is getting on for some 300meters (over 1000 ft) below the roadway. Even more remarkable and just about visible in the picture, is that the bridge is built on a curve.

During an interview when the bridge was first built, architect Sir Norman Foster was questioned about the curve, his reply was that having gone to such lengths, such expense and enormous technical challenge to create the bridge, it was important that drivers should be able to see and appreciate the bridge as they passed across it.

He’s is right.