into the mountains

Wednesday was not a very eventful one. The route was mostly via autoroutes but with some local roads linking the autoroutes (luckily free). It was raining and cold mostly with the temperature falling the closer we got to our destination. Unfortunately the GPS failed us at the end and left us at the end of track on the other side of the valley we managed to navigate ourselves to right spot withe help of our detailed map book. We had a gourmet dinner at the hotel/restaurant in St. Sauves D'Auvergne nearby. In the morning the rain had turned to light snow, which melted when it hit the ground. This was the first time Don had seen snow falling, We drove of in temperatures falling to 0 degrees as we got higher into the mountains. Don was worried by the warnings of ice on the roads but the locals seemed to proceed as normal i.e. fast. Eventually we came onto a free Autoroute which took us all the way to our destination of Grabels, just outside of Montpellier. The rain continued until close to our finish. We stopped twice at some excellent roadhouses for lunch toilets etc. A highlight was viewing and driving over the Millau viaduct, the highest bridge in Europe, spanning the Tarn river. Our GPS got us right to door of our Gite, where we spent 2 nights. We stayed in a little cottage in the garden of our hosts, who were most welcoming, for our dinner I managed to order in French a pizza, to be delivered. It did arrive - of course! The following day we drove to a nearby Tram station and the trip to the centre of Montpellier took about 20 minutes. This is an excellent service with trams about every 5 minutes. We were most impressed with the city, particularly the main square and the old quarter. We took a trip on the 'Petit Train" a good way to see the city and save your legs. Even so by the end of the day we were tired. We had dinner at the restaurant in the Comedie Opera house, watched the entertainment in the adjacent plaza and took the tram back. It had been a great day. To be continued!