What bridge? - 11th January 2009

Another nice and early start in the freezing cold of central France, and straight back on the road. Beautiful blue skies and clear roads made for perfect driving conditions through some stunning French scenery. The route was picked to enable us to go over what we knew to be the quite fantastic structure of the Millau viaduct.

Although I knew it simply to be “a massive bridge” I have since discovered it is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, and at parts is a mere 38m shorter than the Empire State Building, as well as being 2 and half km in length. A pretty impressive structure.

On the blue sky approach to Millau we descended a little into the valley and as we approached the toll for the bridge we were instantly in clouds. A stop at the viewing point had already been arranged with our colleagues in convey, Safari so good, to admire this constructional feat, but alas, we were simply in the clouds and could see no further than 20 metres in front of us. A little disappointing to say the very least. Moments after we finished crossing the bridge we ascended again to the glorious blue skies, but at neither end did we catch a glimpse of the viaduct. Oh well, once you've seen one bridge...

A solid 8 hour drive followed so we could get through the south of France, across the border and begin our journey along the coast of Spain. Getting past Valencia for the night was our target, which we achieved, stopping in a small town called Sueca. A mistake. Driving around the town looking for a hotel was becoming rather challenging as it seemed no tourist had ever decided to stop off there before. And my advice would be, no one should ever think about staying there again. The one hotel we did find was full (of what sort of person I dread to imagine), so it was back to the wagons for another hour down the coast to Javea.

Javea is a marvellous little beach town, and we had soon checked into a small hotel, and found ourselves sitting in an impressive little restaurant ordering beers and tapas. A few beers later it seemed a good idea to kick on for a few more in a local bar. The only open bar we could find was the obligatory Irish bar with the obligatory ex-pat pikey community on the run from which ever local constabulary they originally hailed from. But still, they sold a drink or two, so we entertained ourselves for a bit longer into the evening.