Sightseeing along the way
The Brunas take-off site: this is the starting point of the walk, on the edge of the giant cliffs that line the Larzac. Together with the Pouncho d’Agast and the Puech d’Andan, Brunas is one of three take-off sites that make Millau the only town in France where you can regularly look up in the street and watch paragliders performing their aerial ballets.
Because of the climate and shape of the terrain here, Millau enjoys exceptional air current conditions, making it to paragliding and hang-gliding what Biarritz is to surfing: a major centre that is extremely popular with practitioners of both disciplines.
Millau Viaduct: the walk offers a series of unimpeded panoramic views, each one different, of this phenomenon that remains as popular today as ever.
Every year since it was opened in 2004, hundreds of thousands of admirers come to photograph the viaduct, crick their necks to look up to the top and gather in awe at the unprecedented scale of this amazing structure. Here's a reminder of its measurements: at 2.5 km long, it is a touch longer than the famous Pont de Normandie. Its outrageously thin roadway sits 270 metres above the Tarn Valley. Its highest tower is 340 metres high, 20 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower.
The Tarn Valley: along the way you look down on the Tarn Valley with its prettily banked edges and alluvial slopes that narrow as they approach the Dourbie and Tarn gorges.
Beyond the Tarn Valley where Millau was founded in Gallo-Roman times, there are wonderful views of the Plateau de France, the little Causse Rouge and the first undulations of the Monts du Lévézou.
The Causse du Larzac: this is an immense plateau with a steppe-like feel at an altitude of between 850 and 1,000 metres. In the Jurassic period the sea ruled supreme here. When it receded it left behind a vast plate of sediment.
Around 40 million years ago, when the Alps and Pyrenees were being formed, this limestone block (known as karstic) was riven by shock waves and fault lines, cracking like a nutshell to form the Causse du Larzac. The wind, frost and rain then smoothed its hard surface, creating the endless quiet and imposing landscapes we see today.
The flora of the causse: more than 1,000 plant species have been identified in the Grands Causses Regional Nature Park. Depending on the season you will see in bloom different varieties of orchids, small mauve flowers (lily pinks), sprays of tall silvery grass (known as angel's hair) and large sun-shaped thistles (acanthus thistles) that people hang on their doors to act as barometers. Scots pine, box, juniper and shadberry complete the décor of this uncluttered landscape, dominated by long stretches of short grass.
Short grass: emblematic of the causses, this grass is kept short by the flocks of Lacaune sheep whose milk is used to make Roquefort (the Roquefort cheese cellars are 25 km from Millau). You will notice that this short grass covers, sometimes barely, earth that is red because it is rich in iron oxide, which forms a thin layer on top of the parent rock which comes to the surface here.
Vultures: you may see one or more griffon vultures wheeling in the sky. This is a very large bird of prey with a wingspan of between 2.3 and 2.6 metres. Following their successful reintroduction to the area, some 140 couples nest in the neighbouring Tarn and Jonte Gorges.
The Cirque de Boundoulaou: the natural curiosity you come to on the walk has a pretty name. This geographical feature was eroded at one of the many points where streams and rivers reappear in the Larzac, where most of the water runs underground. The caves of the Cirque de Boundoulaou, a biotope reserve, are home to several colonies of bat. It is also a beginners' caving site very close to Millau.
Practical info
Millau Viaduct
The route description (in French), written by the Fédération Française de Randonnée Pédestre, is available from Millau Tourist Office – Place du Beffroi - Tel. +33 (0)5 65 60 02 42.
Start and end point
The car park at the Brunas take-off site.
Getting there: from Millau, follow signs for Saint-Affrique (D9992). As you leave Creissels (2.5 km from Millau), turn left at the sign 'Viaduc de Millau – Aire de vision'.
Length
10.5 km.
Duration
3 hrs.
Total height difference
82 m (650 m to 732 m).
Waymarking
Yellow (PR®).
Level
Intermediate. For regular walkers.
Best time to go
March to October.
Getting there
Millau is 70 km southwest of Rodez on the D911.
Information
This balcony walk starts just 10 minutes from the centre of Millau. It runs along the edge of the Corniches du Larzac cliffs, giving you endless spectacular views of the highest viaduct on the planet.
On this walk you will come to appreciate the amazing symbiosis that Millau Viaduct has with its surroundings. With its ethereal lines and elegant, arrow-straight sweep, it is reminiscent of a sailing ship plying a sea of clouds, the bottom of its supporting piles already lost in the vegetation. This fabulous structure sets off wonderfully one of the most beautiful areas of countryside in southern France.
A bridge between two worlds
More than that, Millau Viaduct is a bridge between two worlds, two eras nearly a millennium apart.
On one side are the magnificently archaic landscapes of the great causses, flocks of sheep grazing on the Larzac, sheepfolds with their heavy stone-slate roofs and the history of the Templar and Hospitaller cities built on the top of the Larzac as early as the 12th century.
On the other side, this mathematical and architectural creation, high-tech engineering and materials, streams of traffic carrying goods and people, the things of importance in the third millennium.
Here, these two worlds exist side by side, blending into each other in an extremely attractive and natural way to form a continuum. The Millau Viaduct walk captures all the magic, omnipresent contrasts and unexpected complementarity of this unlikely match.
And what's more, the walk runs through the heart of the Grands Causses Regional Nature Park, taking you up onto the beautiful Causse du Larzac, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.
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