South of France

We spent last week in the South of France in a delightful house near the village of Najac in the Aveyron valley. It's a gorgeous, rural and unspoilt area of the country. Sadly though, we did not escape the terrible weather that has plagued Northern Europe for the past few weeks. We saw a lot -- and I mean a lot -- of rain last week and it was pretty cold on occassions. The poor weather didn't stop us enjoying ourselves though.

We visited the incredible new viaduct at Millau designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster, the tallest vehicular bridge in the world. Probably not surprisingly, the French seem to have neglected to highhlight that this spectactular bridge was designed by a Brit -- and the English are rather miffed that the French could build it so perfectly without a ten year delay.

We also explored a few beautiful local towns such as San Antonin and bored the pants off B with tours of ruined castles and chateaus. We did get one day of good weather to enjoy by the pool -- luckily the freezing water shocked my nervous system so much upon diving in that it removed all traces of the cold I had developed in the previous days!