Plantera

Description

Millau to Lavaur

Stage 7 - Friday, 4 September - 168 km (104 mi)

The Stage

The first succesful breakaway? Will the wind surprise any of the favorites? The last 40 km gives the sprinters a chance to catch up and me to use this quote again:

You know the drill - four blokes in the break, a couple of them from UCI Professional Continental teams, one of whom will make a doomed bid for glory about 10 kilometres out to ensure the day's combativity award, before the sprint trains come rolling past to set up their men for the finale.

Winner: Wout van Aert

Tour Touristique

Millau Viaduct
Seems we go here every other year...
A cable-stayed bridge that spans the gorge valley of the Tarn near Millau in southern France. It is the tallest bridge in the world, with one mast's summit at 343.0 metres (1,125.3 ft) above the base of the structure (23 m taller than the Eiffel Tower). In a Franco-British partnership, it was designed by the English architect Sir Norman Foster and French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux, and as of May 2017 it is the twenty-second highest bridge deck in the world, being 270 metres (890 ft) between the road deck and the ground below.

The cost of construction was approximately € 394 million and was built over three years. The bridge has been consistently ranked as one of the great engineering achievements of all time.

Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance
Strolls in the canton of Saint-Sernin often come across mysterious old stones, castles and bell-towers left by history, or sandstone crosses on remote paths. Flowing through the village of Saint-Sernin, the Rance abounds in trout and crayfish. In the old town, there are still traces of medieval prosperity: narrow streets and half-timbered houses. Some Renaissance houses have kept their mullioned windows. The former provost's house, a 15th-century mansion, now houses the town hall.

"The Wild Child" or rather Victor of Aveyron left his life in the woods on January 8, 1800, when he took refuge in the house of dyer Vidal in Saint-Sernin. The wild child was sent two days later to Saint-Affrique and then to Rodez. The naked 10-year-old child wandered in the woods of Lacaune and ran away as soon as the locals tried to approach him. An abbot named Bonnaterre managed to pick him up and take him to the Central School in Rodez. Minister Lucien Bonaparte demanded his transfer to Paris. There he was left to the curiosity of the crowd and scientists. All kinds of assumptions, even the most absurd, have been made about him. In 1970, François Truffaut was inspired by the story and made a film about it called The Wild Boy.

View attached image.