
the bridge at Millau

a village in the Gorge du Tarn

the cathedral at Mende

the cathedral in Puy

Anika spots a cat
The next day we cut across the edge of the Jura through such interesting cities as Belfort, Besançon and Lons-le-Saunier. We ended up spending the night in Puy-en-Velay. We walked around the town, up to the 11th C. cathedral, thinking we might keep the kids up until 19.30 - when dinner's served in local restaurants. In the end we retired to our hotel with a few pastries filled with stew and a bottle of wine.
The next morning we made our way south towards the Mediterranean. Arriving in Mende, we got out to look at the cathedral and I discovered I had left my coat at our hotel. I'll blame it on the idiosyncracies of medieval architecture overlain with modern hotel room geography! Back to Le Puy! Aaah well, it was a beautiful, windy road - first foggy, then sunny - over a snowy mountain pass: no problem driving that a few times!
Later that day we managed to drive along the Gorge du Tarn, a beautiful valley dotted with small, almost inaccessible villages, numerous camp grounds (2-5 star), and thousands upon thousands of rental canoes and kayaks laid up for the winter. This valley led out to a larger town called Millau which is home to one of the more spectacular bridges in the world. Later that afternoon we arrived in Beziers, where we spent the night.
The next morning we headed for Spain via the 'salanque' and the Pyrenees. the road across the border was wonderfully curvy and narrow, heading repeatedly over ridge and back down into seaside town and back up again.
Eventually we reached the border and headed into Spain...
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