Tarn Gorge

26 April - Day 42

We leave this five star Barcelona city today. It was a nice change to be driving again, after a week of walking and metroing. The two nice non-English speaking owners came around at 10 am to inspect the apartment and return my E300 bond money. They gave me their business card saying we should tell our friends to stay there too.

We drove through Costa Brava (a Spanish version Riviera) on the way back to France. The plan was to visit Viaduct de Millau on the way to our hotel in Meyrueis.

We drove across the Spain/France border. There was no check-point, just a gas station and cafe. At the next toll gate, we did get stopped by the French Polizia for passport inspections. This is random stop, presumably for tourists and Spanish cars. The police lady asked if we spoke Spanish, I suggested Anglais - so we settled on French. She asked where we were heading, Marcus said Meyrueis which drew a blank. So I said Millau. After telling us to keep the passports handy (they were locked up in the luggage), we were sent on our way.

The tolls take a bit of getting used to especially in Spain. Deciding which gate to pull into, as you are approaching at 70km/h, with a convoy of trucks, vans and cars bearing down behind you at 90km/h - because THEY know exactly where they are going, is a stress test that could easily feature in the US Navy SEALs "mental agility under duress" training.

This is the process in those few seconds; identify green (open) or red gates, eliminate auto toll gates (for locals on prepaid RFID cards), decide between credit card only, credit card and cash, or manned booth (Xray vision required for this one due to darkened glass).

Make sure car is correctly aligned to the toll booth so that you don't pull something when stretching to pay. Being from a left drive country and used to doing stuff like this with my non-dominant driving right-hand, my reach is considerably shortened if I left it to instincts.

If you end up with a machine, you face a bank of slots, so you have to determine which slot is for your ticket, credit card, notes, coins and change. If short of coins, you scan the machine for the largest acceptable note notice - usually only up to E20 notes. Some entry gates to the motoways don't bother issuing a ticket, they just collect a fixed amount - I have been caught waiting for the ticket to be printed when all the machine wanted was a few coins to be thrown into the coin basket. You could spend a good part of the morning learning and assimilating all this properly if not for the long line of traffic behind.

The amount of toll to pay defies logic as well. We drove all the way from Bilbao to Madrid through beautiful mountain passes and tunnels in 2,3 and 4 lanes and didn't pay a cent - 420 km.

Driving through endless one lane roadworks from Madrid to Granada costs E36. The amounts are weird too. Ten minutes out of Barcelona, the toll was E1.48, just outside Granada - E3.02. Luckily for me, I get to wake Marcus from his sleep to count the correct change. All I have to remember to do is take the money and pay with my left hand.

Lunch was at an autostop near Papignan, after driving past the Pyrenees range on the reverse side from earlier in the month. We've had a couple of disappointing lunches at these autostops, so Marcus bought some tuna sandwiches from the patisserie near our Barcelona apartment. We only used the facilities and bought a coffee.

Viaduct de Millau (vee ah dook dee mee yoh) did not disappoint. I got excited about 20 kms out and asked Marcus to prep the camera with plenty of time.

As we rounded the bend on the A75, the viaduct pylons came into view looking very gracefully framed by the country side and hills.

Drving across felt like you are driving on a very fragile structure because there was hardly any, the pylons in the middle held everything up leaving a clear view of the sides.

The view along the sides were hampered by the cross-wind breakers. Nonetheless we could see the town of Millau far below and the Tarn river looking more like a stream from this height (300 something metres up).

Once across, we pulled over to the rest area, and climbed up look-out for a view of the viaduct from the north end. It was pretty windy for most poeple up there, but we felt at home and gained another perspective of the viaduct.

There is a very nice cafe and tourist information centre there, with very helpful staff. The cafe sold these things call Cappucin's which is a large ice cream cone filled with either savoury or sweet fillings for around 5 euros each. I'd read that it was made up by a Michelin star chef. Sadly we were too full from lunch to buy one of these.

Tolls to drive across the bridge was E6.70, which we could have easily avoided by driving through Millau below, but they did spend E400M building the thing, so cest la vie. It will take them 45 years to recover the costs.

We then drove to another view area below the viaduct. This place was put up by the engineering company that built the bridge, so there were videos on the process to watch and a souvenir shop.

After all that sight seeing we we keen to get to our hotel for a rest and dinner. Having booked a hotel in the middle of the Tarn Gorge, we had to drive through the gorge to get to the hotel. I will elaborate in tomorrows blog.

The hotel was very nice, the staff, based in the middle of nowhere, spoke English except for the waiter, who was excellent by the way. I, by accident (or ignorance), ordered a sparkling wine with my trout, but he directed me towards a still white which was more suitable. The poor chap at the next table was compelled to intervene in English because the waiters suggestion was falling on ignorant ears, and the charades at the next table was putting him off his dinner.

27 April - Day 43

The reason for staying in Meyrueis was to spend a day exploring the Tarn Gorge. It is like the Grand Canyon in USA, except more stunning, accessible, driveable, and has more features and restaurants

The drive around this area is simply breath-taking and death-defying. We drove up and down the canyon walls on narrow but two lane roads.

The roads are twisty with plenty of switchbacks, sheer drops, large rock overhangs above us and many tunnels carved into massive boulders.

There were many hamlets, villages and settlements on the route, and many cafes and restaurants perched in odd places or where they can to take advantage of the tourist trade.

A canoe company provides opportunity to view the gorge from a water level and less undulating perspective.

 

The highlight of the day was our visit to Aven Armand. Aven means sink-hole and Armand was the guy who found it. I am surprised this is not one of the seven wonders (but the French do like to keep their best stuff for themselves). This is a cave 200k cubic metres, big enough to hold Notre Dame filled with stalactites and stalagmites.

This cave is 4 million years of hard work by mother nature. The cable car took us down there in 2-3 minutes.

The stalactites growing down were sharp, had wavy forms thin and elegent. The stalagmites growing up took a more robust and varied shapes.

They are, for good reason, named palm tree, turkey, draperies, jelly fish, cauliflower and the guide pointed one that looked like the holy familiy La Sagrada Familia, which made me think this is where Gaudi got his inspirations.

I am sure I even saw Homer Simpson, the bald shiny top and round tummy being the visual check-points.

After this impressive visit, we made an equally stunning and hairy drive to a small and beautiful village call Saint Enimie and had our pizza lunch by this part of river Tarn.