Millau Viaduct

The viaduct carries the A75 over the Tarn valley near Millau, opened in December 2004 after the old route through the town became a notorious summer bottleneck. Michel Virlogeux engineered it and Norman Foster designed it: a cable-stayed deck two thousand four hundred and sixty metres long on seven piers, with the tallest mast reaching three hundred and forty-three metres above the base, which made it the tallest bridge in the world by structural height from 2004 until a Yangtze crossing in China passed it in 2025; it remains the tallest in Europe. The deck sits about two hundred and seventy metres above the river. It is often photographed with cloud filling the valley beneath it and the roadway apparently floating.

History

In the 1980s holiday traffic on the route from Paris to Spain jammed the town of Millau in the Tarn valley, and after first plans in 1987 the decision was taken in October 1991 to cross the valley high up on a structure about 2,500 metres long. After consultations with architects and engineers in 1993-1996, a jury chose in July 1996 the multi-span cable-stayed design of the team led by Michel Virlogeux and Norman Foster, and in 2001 Eiffage won the contract to build and run it. The first stone was laid on 14 December 2001, the pylons rose from March 2002 by 4 metres every three days, and the deck, assembled on the plateaus at each end, was pushed out across the piers on hydraulic wedges, 600 millimetres at a time. Built in three years for about €394 million, the viaduct was inaugurated on 14 December 2004 and opened to traffic on 16 December; with a structural height of 343 metres it was the tallest bridge in the world for over two decades (Wikipedia, Millau Viaduct).

What you'll find

• The scale - a 343-metre mast and a deck 270 metres above the river.
• The valley viewpoints - laybys and belvederes giving the full span.
• The cloud effect - mist filling the valley below the deck on some mornings.
• The visitor area - an exhibition on the design and construction below the bridge.

When to go

April to October; autumn and winter mornings give the best chance of valley cloud. Crossing costs a toll that rises in summer. Viewpoints from the D992 and the belvedere are free.

What to expect

Crossing it gives little sense of the height because parapets block the view; the bridge is better seen from below. Toll rates increase in peak season. The visitor centre is modest.

Nearby

The Gorges du Tarn lie northeast; Roquefort is south.

Key facts