Chasing the Sun!

After a good night’s sleep we headed south for Perpignan avoiding the toll roads, driving through Borges, Montlucon and Clermont Ferrand before being able to use the non toll motorway, the A75 that goes all the way south to the Med at Beziers. There is one small toll to pay before you get to the Med and that is to cross the viaduct at Millau. After lunch we decided that getting to Perperignan was probably a bit too ambitious to do today so we decided to end our driving at Millau as there was an Aire there that looked OK. The scenery between Clermont Ferrand and Millau is quite dramatic and we climbed up to an altitude of 1060 metres and even saw snow on the side of the hills.

The ever reliable Tom Tom took us direct to the Aire only to find that it now charged for an overnight stop, there was a Dutch couple struggling to use the automated machine that lifted the barrier to let you in to the park and the only electric hook up was already taken by another Brit! We reviewed the situation and decided to continue south to another Aire but before doing so took some photos of the bridge that crosses the gorge and then proceeded to drive another 40 miles. The climb out of Millau and the continuing journey to where we are now is also quite spectacular.

We have arrived in a small town called Lodeve and are parked in a town car park that caters for overnight stops for campers for free!

We have been looking for the sun and finally found it tonight setting over the Millau Viaduct, we so hope it is still with us in the morning as there are clear skies and we are apparently in the Mediterranean area, according to the guides.

Tony is happy because today we have not incurred any charges, have travelled 333 miles, half of them on motorway, half on normal roads, where on Liz’s instructions we kept to the speed limits through the endless villages.

In total we have travelled 747 miles Lesley Brown’s favourite number!