Thursday 1st to Friday 2nd October, 2026
Continuing our journey south through France, we stopped off at a few more interesting places:
St-Cirq-Lapopie:
The village of St-Cirq-Lapopie, is perched, high up on the side of a hill overlooking the Lot River. It is one of the designated “Beau Villages” of France.
To get to the village, we crossed the Lot then climbed steadily and steeply, and eventually made our way through the village itself to the car park above. We felt quite uncomfortable as we passed through as we seemed to be a bit over-sized for the road, but we managed to park OK and walked back down.
As it happens, we need not have worried as when we were walking down, we saw a huge coach making its way down the very streets we had travelled up, struggling to pass a lorry which was unloading:
It is simply gorgeous. A real chocolate box picture of a place with loads of old buildings seemingly piled on top of each other:
We also climbed up the rock in the village centre to view up and down the Lot Valley:
Further up the Lot Valley, we saw a chateau…
…and another hill-top village across the valley:
Viaduc Millau:
Having a look at this amazing bridge has been on the to-do list for some time and has been on the broad agenda for this trip from the start.
Saint-Beauzély, just a few kilometres away, provided our overnight park-up, before we headed to the A75 motorway junction a few kilometres north, with the intention of visiting the visitor centre, situated in an aire immediately before the viaduct. There, we watched a presentation about the construction and learned many statistics:
We then climbed up to a viewpoint which provides a superb view of the bridge, and later took to the roads which lead underneath it, back to the town of Millau.
You think you know about this bridge from media coverage, but the reality is much more impressive. The support pillars are immense:
Although it was a long time in the planning, actual construction only took 3 years.
Peyre:
Choosing to leave Millau along the River Tarn Valley, we called at the small village of Payre, another “Beau Village of France”. Again, it is built above the river on the side of a hill.
Many of the buildings are actually built into the hill, including the old church (now replaced).
It is another lovely medieval place, really only accessible on foot (or cycle).
From the village, you can see back across to the Millau Viaduct:
That’s your “Lot” for now. TTFN and see-u-later.
