“Dancing Across The Valley”

Thursday 29 February 2024

“Dancing across the valley” - Lord Norman Fosters’ words to describe the beautiful Millau bridge he designed, which connects two plateaus in central France. 

It may be ‘just’ a motorway bridge on the A75 but its beauty and elegance sets it apart from so many others. The seven pillars are huge and they taper and split at the top, like massive tuning forks.

As a teenager back in the 70’s I remember having a full page newspaper pull out of the first Severn Bridge on my bedroom wall (in between the pin ups of Donny Osmond and Mud!!). It must have been a special supplement, possibly commemorating 10 years since it opened in 1966, and it was a beautiful image of it at sunset. That fondness for bridges continues to this day and Dave & I love them - from the ancient Roman ones to the ultra modern ones. The Millau Viaduct has been on our wish list to see since it opened 20 years ago.

To make the most of our time here we firstly drove under the bridge along the River Tarn and its valley, with the viaduct towering 343 meters above us. Then onto the nearby town of Millau which, thanks to the traffic now using the bridge, no longer grinds to a halt during July and August when most of Paris’s population heads south to the coast (which is where we are now!). 

From Millau we then headed up to the viewpoint and excellent visitor centre on the northern plateau. With videos and drone footage there is a step by step explanation of the design vision, the decades of planning and the 3 years of construction at a cost of £220 million.

The sun was trying to break through and small shafts of light occasionally lit up the mighty white steel cables but the skies remained stubbornly grey. If you check Google images there are some amazing photos of the bridge with blue sky above and low white cloud in the valley - very ethereal.

Driving over the tallest bridge in the world only takes a couple of minutes - just about enough time to admire the beautiful design elements as it unfolds before you. The gentle curve, the sleek lines of the pillars and cables, the massive scale of the engineering, the absence of unnecessary signage and the tantalising glimpses of the distant valleys.

When submitting his design Norman Foster said he was "definitely NOT the person that they should choose if they wanted to build a bridge across the river. I wanted to build a bridge to cross the whole valley, the entire space between the two high plateaux on either side, something that would be elegant and uniform and delicate and take account of the grandeur and sweep of the landscape."

The final words of this blog post should go to the bridges French engineer, Michel Virlogeux, who said “Transparence, Simplicité, Elegance”. 

Homeward Bound - Adios España

Thursday 22 February 2024

All too quickly our road trip has, sadly, come to an end. Our Spain - Portugal - Spain sandwich has ended in San Sebastián, the weather is taking a turn for the worse and it’s time to head for home.

Our first couple of weeks in Spain, at the beginning of January, were spent driving south of the Pyrenees and heading west along the north coast towards Galicia. My sister asked me for our itinerary before we left, we knew which direction we were going in but not where the road would take us. This was what I sent her for our first month!

After leaving Portugal just over 2 weeks ago we’ve driven 1750 miles through some amazing scenery in central Spain. We’ve visited sophisticated cities, imposing fortress protected towns, medieval settlements and the remains of Roman era sites.

La Alberca

Ávila City Walls at night 

The landscape has varied enormously from stubby vineyards to lush olive groves, terraces of cherry trees to vast wheat fields. There’s been mountains, rivers, hot springs, waterfalls, palaces, castles, monasteries and museums - but there’s still so much more to see. 

Jaén Castle

Toledo

Waterfalls in Jerte Valley

Rioja Region

I couldn’t have done even a rough itinerary of this last part of our trip for my sister but looking back at where we’ve been it would look vaguely like this! 

Our very rough route through central Spain

Below are a few more photographs to hopefully give you a flavour of the last part of our road trip.

Seville Cathedral 

Segovia Aqueduct 

Segovia Cathedral at sunset

Rock formations in Autol 

Free hot thermal baths in Arnedillo

Dinosaur Route from Enciso

Dinosaur footprint (my dainty size 7 for comparison)

San Sebastián 

We’ll come back to Spain I’m sure to explore the eastern and southern parts of the country and, who knows, we may even venture into Morocco! I hope you’ve enjoyed my little musings and photographs - thanks for coming along for the ride with us. 

Small van - big world (he did come back to get me!)

Olive Oil - Liquid Gold

Tuesday 20 February 2024

A couple of days ago we stayed overnight at a private campervan site owned by a small family business producing organic olive oil called Aceite Artejo. Parked by a little lake we were surrounded by relatively young olive trees in a very peaceful setting miles away from traffic.

Throughout our trip we’ve driven past miles and miles of olive groves. We were even diverted off-road through an olive tree plantation on one occasion when the main carriageway was closed without any pre-warning. We drove through Jaén, a province in Andalusia, known as the world's "olive oil capital" due to its production of high-quality olive oil. We also visited Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, regions famous for producing some full-bodied oils. 

Figures vary but it is said that Spain produces between 40% and 50% of the world’s olive oil, twice as much as Italy and four times as much as Greece. Thankfully the trees in Spain have been resistant to the disease which has blighted trees in other countries. When we drove around southern Italy last year we witnessed the dead and dying olive trees in Puglia - such a sad sight. Spittlebugs, a common insect, spread a bacteria called Xylella which clogs the vessels carrying water from the roots to the leaves, slowly choking the tree to death. Puglia used to produce 50% of Italy’s olive oil but the disease killed 21 million trees, over a third in the region.

Back to the healthy thriving Spanish olive oil economy. Not only are there many different types of olive trees, which result in different flavours, but the way the olives are managed and harvested also varies enormously. From the traditional shaking of the old mature trees and collection of olives from the ground to the most modern techniques where smaller trees are planted in straight rows and mechanical picking methods are used.

The little business we stayed at offered free olive oil tasting sessions, so at 10am (shortly after finishing breakfast!!) we tuned up at the little shop. An array of bottles were lined up and the young lady explained that the 12 different varieties of olive trees they grow on their estate produce oils with quite differing flavours. They are very proud of the fact that the olives are picked and pressed on the same day and they bottle and package all their own oil.

In the ancient world, virgin olive oil was called “liquid gold” by Homer and “the great healer” by Hippocrates. Dave chose his favourite and we left with 3 litres of gorgeous liquid gold. 

Bardenas Reales

Sunday 18 February 2024

Bardenas Reales - a landscape sculpted by time, weather and water, this semi-desert area is about 70km south of the Pyrenees in the Navarra region of Spain.

The ground is made of clay, chalk, and sandstone which has been eroded by water over millions of years, leaving plateaus, hills, valleys and multi coloured rocky outcrops. It is full of peculiar geological formations - a photographers dream.

For the best part of 8 hours we drove around on the dusty unmade roads on a beautifully sunny Sunday, exploring the 3 different areas of the park. And for most of the time we were all alone seeing very few other vehicles.

To the south east is the Plana de la Negra - least visited and seemingly least loved, even the Information Office weren’t selling it to us as he circled on the map which areas we really SHOULD head for. However we found it fascinating as it provided us with some amazing views from a high windy plateau and some unique experiences. We saw golden eagles, pin-tailed sandgrouse (plus plenty of other birds we couldn’t identify) and some beautiful flowers and butterflies. The rocks are a darker red colour in this area and many have pine and oak trees growing on them making them appear black from afar, hence the name.

In the northern area are El Plano (only accessible on foot or by bike) and La Blanca Alta which we drove a few miles through until the track became very rutted and almost impassable. 

But it’s the central area, La Bardena Blanca, which is the one the tourists flock to, even more so since it featured in Game of Thrones (filming location of Dothraki Sea in Season 6 - means nothing to me but might to you if you’re a fan). Scenes from James Bond’s 1999 The World is Not Enough, which I’m much more familiar with than GOT, were also filmed here.

Of the 42,000 hectares most visitors sadly only see a fraction of the Natural Park which is the area with the extraordinary rock formations. One of the information boards has Before/Now/Future illustrations showing how the weather causes the sedimentary and clay layers to erode at different rates.

It’s an extremely fragile ecosystem with UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status. The are a few simple common-sense rules for visiting the park. These are listed on their website, in the Information Centre, on the free map handed out and on subtle signage dotted around the park. 

It’s a real shame then that a few people feel the rules don’t apply to them. Like the woman who climbed half way up the Castildetierra so her friends could photograph her, the man flying his drone around it, the couple who parked up & slept overnight in their car and the group who left banana and orange peel at the base of the rocky formation (which Google tells me will take up to 2 years to decompose). Just why? They are accelerating the erosion, polluting the environment and spoiling the experience for everyone else. Rant over - here’s some more photographs to enjoy.

Castildetierra

June and September are said to be the two months to see the park at its best. The evidence of last week’s rain could still be seen on some of the muddy tracks we drove along, leaving our van in a sorry state, but the recent sunny spell meant our trip in mid February was just perfect. 

Looking across to the plateau at sunrise