Day 10

 On our 10^th day in France we decided to visit something modern for a change. We visited the Millau Viaduct Bridge. Plans for the bridge were started in 1987 as a solution to taking the A75 Motorway from Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers. No actual construction began until December 14, 2001. The bridge was officially finished and inaugurated in 2004, just three short years. Since it was Megan’s idea to visit the bridge, she did all the research, Olivia called a cab, and we all piled inside. Unless you are driving over the Millau Viaduct Bridge you can’t actually “visit” it, you have to go to the Viaduct Information Centre. The center does provide beautiful viewpoints of the bridge, but the closest viewpoint was a 30 minute walk uphill. By the time we got up the hill everyone was out of breath! It turned out that the walk was worth it though, because everyone was speechless when we got a good look at the bridge. It was so beautiful; we all agreed that it should be the 8^th wonder of the world.

After spending a few hours at the Millau Viaduct Bridge, we decided to go see Tour de France. It was the 9^th day of the Tour and it was being held in Saint Flour. Olivia and I had heard about the Tour de France and we were just dying to see it.  The Tour was started in 1903 because of a feud between two French sports newspapers, Le Velo and L’Auto-velo. So Olivia called yet another cab and it took us from Clermont-Ferrand to Saint Flour. The drive took little more than an hour.  By the time we got to Saint Flour, there were already hundreds of people standing behind boundaries. We didn’t get such good spots to stand, but we could see the bikers and that was all that mattered. Megan bought some Tour de France hats for everyone and I was overjoyed. It was so hot standing there around all those people. Monica had her camera with her from the bridge and snapped a few photos of the bikers. We stayed in Saint Flour until around 8 o’clock, and then we decided to head back to our hotel and call it a night.