Millau Things to Do

I didn’t Have chance to visit Millau city, with my tight schedule of my trip, so just can admired this city from far away. But one day Hope have a chance to transit in this city.
Millau (pronounced mee-yo) squeezes between the Causse Noir and Causse du Larzac at the confluence of the Rivers Tarn and Dourbie. Tough falling just over the border into the Midi-Pyrénées Département of Aveyron, it’ tied to Languedoc historically and culturally. Millau famous within France for glove-making.

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Perched up on the plateau area of Lozère is the small town of Salles-Curan. It's not particularly memorable but we stopped by for something to eat and went for a wander in the older back streets of the town. The pictures show something of what we found. The window box displays were clearly one of the owner's pleasures.

Our reason for going over to the area was to see if we could go sailing on the man-made Lac de Pareloup. We succeeded in hiring a catamaran and under the guidance of our captain ( a Maths student on vacation) we were able to do all the cool stuff like leaning out over the side and jibing - whatever that is. Anyway we all enjoyed it. We hired the boat and guide for an hour, no booking required, and it cost us Euros 80.

On the road out west from Millau towards Peyre you will pass directly underneath the Viaduct. There is a Museum/exhibition centre located very near to the main column. It was quite busy when we stopped by and we decided we didn't want to pay the extra entrance fee but it would be good to do on a rainy day. You can get some good photos of the bridge from here.

There are very many canoe agencies along the River Tarn so just visit the local Tourist information office and they will happily put you in touch with one of the organisations. We chose to do the full day starting just up river from Ste Enimie. It's such a beautiful gorge that we hadn't tired of it when we had completed more or less the same trip a few years earlier.
There are always loads of great stopping off points where you can haul up the boat onto the shingle and go for a swim. There are not so many places to stop for a coffee or a proper 'sit down' but St Chely du Tarn is a good one if you want to have a break from paddling.

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Try your hand at Parapente. Millau is a good place for novices to do this. We found a number of organisations that offer a tandem opportunity for beginners. Basically an experienced pilot does all the work and the novice sits in a big pouch below the pilot. My wife and my daughter both wanted to do it and so we booked for an afternoon flight - it lasted only about 20 minutes.
At about £50 each it's not a cheap activity which is why I didn't do it - but next time it will be my turn! For your money you get taken up in the van, kitted out and launched. During the flight the pilot has a camera on a pole and encourages you to look up so that you can have your photo taken midflight. My wife felt this was a little annoying but my easygoing daughter didn't mind.
Both landed safely and both of them really enjoyed the trip though I think it's interesting that neither have said they have a burning desire to repeat the experience. Maybe it's one of those seen it, done it; what's next experiences?

At the end each flier is given a certificate and encouraged to buy a CD of the pictures taken during the flight. We didnt indulge in this. I'd got a few photos and that was enough to record the event.

There is no substitute for seeing it in person. NONE of the photos or video we looked at in preparation for the visit prepared us for the visual impact of this engineering marvel. Get the list of view points from the 'Air' and visit each and every one. At night, it something surrealistic, extraterrestrial.

This photo, taken on May 21st 2004 should be one of the last of the viaduct before its completion on May 28th. However, though the road way will be complete at this date, it will not open to traffic before December 17th 2004. For more, look at Ouverture viaduc and at Viaduc de Millau

This close up, allows to better see how the Millau viaduct compare with the Eiffel tower, in blue. The top platform (3rd level) of the Tour Eiffel is several meters lower than the roadway of the Millau viaduct. The highest structure (antenna) of the Tour Eiffel is much lower than the highest superstructure of the Millau viaduct.