We’ve returned to Millau, one of Francine’s personal favourites, for the first time in more years than I can remember. It’s been a four night stop.
We used to stay at a quite wooded campsite beside the River Dourbie but now we have come to Camping Saint Martin almost in the shadow of the magnificent Millau viaduct. (This picture misses two more pylons to the left.) The campsite reviews mentioned views of the viaduct but I don’t think it’s actually visible from the site itself. What is visible, particularly from Frodo’s viewpoint, is the Cirque Saint Martin, overflown in the late afternoon/evening by some of the astonishingly large Griffon Vultures that call this area home. It’s not a bad place to just sit and watch.
Millau has two market days and we timed our arrival for the Wednesday market. There is a 5km cycle route from our campsite into the centre of Millau which we followed to investigate. Going into Millau is largely downhill so the going was easy. The Wednesday market was a bit lame, in truth, being much reduced in size with most seeming to be more like a rummage sale. Having sat at a bar for a coffee, we tackled the return route, largely uphill, and were very grateful for the bikes’ electric assistance.
With decent market withdrawal symptoms, we repeated our downhill visit for the Friday market, which is really the main event, not that we had remembered beforehand. This was much more extensive and devoted large areas to the French love of food. Now we were encouraged to spend money on some artisan sheep’s cheese, a rotisseried chicken, which we always refer to as a spinning chicken, and some aligot to accompany it for lunch. Aligot is a bit like French mashed potato: smashed potatoes are stirred with a large wooden paddle whilst being heated with cheese and, I think, some crème fraîche. It’s a labour of love which I’ll leave to the experts.
The cafes were all heaving on the main market day so, armed with our purchases we made our assisted uphill return to enjoy lunch beneath the imposing cirque.There is a belvedere up on the cirque offering a panoramic view of that wonderful viaduct. I must say I was tempted to try attacking it on the bike but somehow I never quite got around to it.
There is a small stream flowing just beneath the campsite and I couldn’t resist checking it out for wildlife. I was very happy that I did because in one sunny spot, and being very cooperative was a lovely male Golden-ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii). We have them in the UK but sadly not anywhere near my home which lacks the correct type of habitat.
One morning we stretched our legs along the lane leading into the cirque and, as well as seeing a female Golden-ringed Dragonfly, we were very pleasantly surprised by what I thought was a Purple Emperor (Apatura iris) butterfly. As it sat in the hedgerow, I waited (somewhat) patiently for it to open its wing and hopefully give us a flash of the glorious purple colour, which it eventually did. Then I was informed by those more knowledgeable than I in the world of butterflies, that this was actually a Lesser Purple Emperor (Apatura ilia) which I didn’t even know existed, Nice one.
We were very favourably impressed by our new campsite. It’s actually an ACSI site and very reasonably priced at €16.70 a night. For some reason, this seemed to be the friendliest campsite we’ve come across this trip with an especially charming guardienne. Maybe it’s just the luck of the draw with which other campers happen to be there at the time, or maybe the mood of the guardienne contributes. The campsite has the added advantage of a Leclerc supermarket about 1km down the hill towards Millau,
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