MILLAU VIADUCT, GREAT TOURIST SITE IN MIDI-PYRÉNÉES

MILLAU, AVEYRON

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Opened in December 2004, the Millau Viaduct was devised by the French Engineer Michel Virlogeux and designed by the English architect Lord Norman Foster. This structure spans the Tarn in a single bound of 2,460 m and holds the world height record with a tower above the valley at 343 m.

Thanks to the Millau Viaduct, the Méridienne (A75 motorway) is the shortest, most economical and hassle-free between Paris and the Mediterranean.

The unique motorway structure with the look of a yacht, has become a work of art to be contemplated. Each year, more than a million visitors gather at the Viaduct lookout point. This unique, highly-prized area, is the only authorised, secured, laid out lookout point for the general public. As well as being a lookout point and a tourist information centre, it is also a great place to eat. This place offers light refreshments representing Aveyron excellence to people passing through or visiting.
The Millau Viaduct is thus for Aveyron what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, and people come from around the world to appreciate the structure.

Fine, light and slender, the Millau Viaduct is very much at home in the landscape. It is also a reference between two worlds. This contemporary work of art is at the heart of the natural regional Grands Causses Park. With the Causse Rouge to its north and the celebrated Causses de Larzac to its south, the Millau Viaduct may be seen from all around.

A few kilometres away, the Roquefort cheese cellars are an extraordinary network of caves in which the king of France's cheeses is matured.
We then take to the road once again to seek out the area's treasures… The five fortified sites of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller on the Larzac (La Couvertoirade, La Cavalerie, Sainte Eulalie de Cernon, Saint Jean d’Alcas and Le Viala du Pas de Jaux) stand as witness to the presence of the warrior monks who settled here in the 12th century. Further south, the Cistercian abbey at Sylvanès is home to an International Festival of Religious Music held there every summer.

Finally, Millau, whose patrimony goes back to ancient Rome, is today celebrated for its glove trade. The town welcomes numerous visitors who are keen to enjoy all these tourist attractions at the foot of this majestic structure.

In this new high location of the French patrimony, tradition and modernity coexist very naturally, as exemplified by the astonishing symbiosis between the viaduct and its environment.