The Milau Bridge

This is the Milau Viaduct the tallest bridge in the world. It’s highest towers stretches a
staggering 343 meters, - So high this bridge glides above the clouds. But this is the mega
structure they said couldn’t be built.

When I’ve shown first the drawing of this bridge they really thought I was crazy. The
team that is attempting to build this free way in the sky had to survive landslides; fight
winds gusting at a 130 kms an hour and where the massive storms as the bridge simply
hung in the balance. It is a bridge that pushes the boundaries of engineering to the limits
and then beyond.

Imagine building a series of Eiffel Towers then slinging up four lane high way between
them all the way across one of the deepest valleys in France. Impossible though it sounds
that pretty much describes the building of the Milau Viaduct.

From the start the construction team faced three daunting challenges. One: build the
tallest bridge base in the world; two: put a 36,000 tone free way on top of them; & three:
erect seven steel pylons each weighing 700 tones. And what’s more? They had to do this
hundreds of meters above solid ground so high that if you’re on top of the Eiffel tower
you’ll still be looking up at this awesome bridge.

October 2001 the team break ground they are required to build the bridge that would last
for 120 years. And to win the contract the team promised to build it in record time. Less
than four years. By comparison the world’s longest suspension bridge Akaiko kaiki of
Japan took a four ten years to build. To up the antique any delay would cost them 30,000
dollars a day in penalty. There are seven piers that are numbered from the northern end of
the valley. Number one will pose problems because of the steep slope. Number two will
be the biggest challenge since it’s the tallest. Crossing the river number three is not much
shorter then four, five, six and seven find the gentlest slope in the south.

To begin the team had to burry the foundations deep in the bedrock in order to support
the enormous weight the bridge will place on them. But the forces of nature were stacked
against them. Geologists have warned of the risks posed by the regions fractured
limestone. The rock is full of cavities; cavities that are essential to the local cheese
economy. These cave systems close to Millau are home to a unique bacteria responsible
for the blue mould in the world famous rock fort cheese. But what’s perfect for cheese
could be disastrous for a mega structure.

The geologist’s diagnosis spelt one thing, land slides. This kind of catastrophe could
jeopardize the entire project. Despite the warnings building went ahead as planned. Then
well into construction as predicted a dramatic storm causes a land slide. 4000 cubic
meters of rock collapse around pier one. Fortunately the fallen rock doesn’t damage the
pier. But the warning is clear, they’re forced to revert precious manpower and equipment
to stabilize the slope and prevent a repeat collapse.
So if the area is prone to land slides why did they build the world’s tallest bridge here in
the first place? The answer is simple. In the 1980s France built a free way linking Paris
directly with Spain. This major artery headed south across the French country side or
from the Mediterranean the free way headed north until they both hit one of the deepest
valleys in France and stopped dead.

Welcome to Millau France’s least favoured bottle neck. The town of Millau is in the
mountainous region of massive sound tall one of the tranquil parts of France. But in
summer this poor medieval town suffered traffic hell. The locals couldn’t take it any
more, neither could their mayor. It was terrible for our reputation when you hear every
day on the television or radio avoid Millau there is a traffic back up, a five hour wait in
Millau (Jaques Godfrain – Mayor of Millau).

And it not just the people of Millau two drivers Jameela and Jamima crossing the thirty
odd kilometers between the free way on either side of Millau to reveal exactly why this
bridge is needed. Jameela in car 33 would cross the new bridge, while in car 22 Jamaima
will take the old road to cross the valley floor. Getting straight on the free way, car 33
approaches the Millau bridge after just 18 minutes, the only delay is the 30 seconds it
takes to get through the toll booth. Then driving in a hundred kilometers in an hour over
the spectacular bridge, she takes just 32 minutes to get to the other side. Car 22
meanwhile is just beginning to crawl in the medieval streets of Millau. Cyclists
pedestrians, people with dogs are only to be negotiated. Car 22 then has the long haul at
the other side of the valley. The final timing is a staggering one hour and 35 minutes.
Over an hour longer than Jameela who took the free way and bridge. It’s clear exactly
why the bridge was needed. But it took the French government a very long time to get
round to building it.

12 years before construction began up in Paris the Ministry of Transport first came up
with a plan. Their head bridge builder Michael Virlogeux is no ordinary engineer. He is a
man who thinks big; very big. Like the Normandy Bridge in northern France the longest
cable stay span in the world. With this record breaking structure completed Virlogeux
was on to his next Millau. His plan another cable stay bridge but pushing the technology
beyond anything previously attempted with piers four times higher than the Normandy
Bridge.

The Millau Bridge will not only be the world’s tallest it would be unlike any bridge ever
constructed. When I’ve shown first the drawing of this bridge to convince the authorities
they really thought I was crazy (Michael Virlogeux). Virlogeux’ Normandy bridge has
two sets of cables supporting the deck but he wanted to up the stakes for Millau by losing
one row of cables so the remaining line will be forced to do twice the work. More
dramatically the 2.5 km Millau Bridge, instead of having a single main span needed a
whole series of piers to support it across the valley. No one ever attempted a multiple
span single line cable stay bridge on this scale before.

The French authorities had a problem, nervous about Virlogeux’ ground breaking scheme
they held a competition, inviting other engineers and architects to compete, with different
designs. The winner Lord Norman Foster is one of the world’s super star architects. In
Honk Kong he built the world’s largest airport terminal. In Barcelona, offices literally
hang from a mast on this communications tower. This is a man who regularly
contemplates the impossible and delivers. You know it’s the challenges; and it’s one
challenge on top of another, on top of another (Lord Norman Foster). And with Millau
one of the biggest challenges was making it fit in to the landscape. Given it just down the
road from the famous Gourge Du Taarn France’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon.

How do you make something which means to be so immensely strong against the forces
of nature look very gentle very delicate how do you weave something on that scale in to
the most unbelievable landscape? Ironically Foster’s answer was to take Virlogeux’
pioneering scheme and then push it one stage further. He turned an elegant piece of
engineering in to a delicate work of art by boldly cutting two of the nine original piers
and seriously slimming down the remaining piers and road deck. Foster wanted the
bridge to appear as delicate as a butterfly. But this butterfly has to support the weight of
five Eiffel towers in Gail force winds, hundreds of meters above the river Taarn. Getting
the design wrong would be a disaster.

December 2001, France’s Millau Viaduct the tallest bridge in the world is under
construction. Everything about this project is super sized. It will need 200,000 tones of
concrete, so much that the team have to build the concrete factory on site. But there is
nothing straight forward about this concrete. The formula must be just right, it needs
structural strength to support the massive loads it will have to bear but it can’t set too
quickly as it has to be hoisted in position and poured hundreds of meters in the air and it
needs to be just right in colour to suit Norman Foster’s vision. In fact the architect’s
vision has created a head ache for the construction team. He’s designed each pier as a
complicated geometric shape tapering the entire way up with vertical grooves set into
them to create shadows. But what’s just the line on paper for the architect was a major
challenge to build.

The enormous piers are built step by step by pouring concrete into a temporary mould. To
give the required strength the mould is filled with a frame of steel reinforcing bars in total
16,000 tones of these steel bars are hoisted into place and secured laid end to end it’d
stretch to 4000 kilometers from Millau all the way to Central Africa. The shape of each
pier is seriously complicated. As a result each time they remove the sections of red steel
shattering they have to change the shape of the mould to fit the profile of the next four
meter section. Manhandling these steel panels weighing up to 15 tones a piece is no
picnic and with the combined height of seven piers totaling well over a kilometer they
have to change the shape of the mould over 250 times.

Every three days each team on each pier went through this whole cycle then they
repeated the process. But it was a race against time with the prominent threat of delay.
Keeping the entire build on time and the budget was the daunting responsibility of one
man. Jean Pierrie Martin – project manager. If we said three days we took four imagine
that multiply by the number of costings we would we would end up with a 3 or six
months delay. With a penalty of nearly a million dollars a month this isn’t something
Martin wanted to contemplate. And this schedule wasn’t his only head ache. You have to
be pin point accurate when you are building the tallest bridge piers in the world. Get it
wrong and the bridge simply won’t fit together. Just ten cms out about a hands width on
each four meter section and the tallest pier could be 6 meters off at the top – the width of
a jumbo jet fuselage.

Each team is aiming for a specific point in the sky. The pier two which was exactly 245
mts above the ground 546 mts from the north side and 1914 mts from the southern end,
there was no room for error. The only chance they had to get it right was with GPS
accurate with in 4 milli meters. Using signals from multiple satellites the team could
pinpoint that position and make sure they are on target for that critical point in the sky
they needed to hit.

Month after month the piers climbed higher. Finally by November 2003 they reached
their full height. At 245 mts pier two becomes the highest bridge pier in the world. And is
this record breaking pillar where it is supposed to be? Amazingly it’s dead on target. To
with in 2 cms. Champagne corks pop. Its time for a major celebration.

Against all the odds they were one month ahead of the schedule. But the team couldn’t
afford to relax. The next stage of the project would be the most difficult part of the
building.

Phase to building the world’s tallest bridge involve putting a 2½ km roadway weighing
36,000 tones on top of the piers a full 270 mts above the river Taarn. Bridge builders
know danger comes with the territory. But working at these heights can be lethal. More
than 34 died constructing New York’s Brooklyn bridge, 35 died in 1970 on the West
Gate Bridge in Melbourne, Australia. And one year later 13 workers were killed when the
Complends Bridge in Germany collapsed in to the Rhine. With these fatalities in mind
the team decided to fabricate the entire road deck on the safety of solid ground. This
meant building it in steel which in theory would be much safer than lifting the vast
concrete sections hundreds of meters in to position. There is only one problem with this
plan. No one had ever put a road deck on piers anything like this height before, that too
well over a 2½ km span.

In the end only one steel manufacturer had the courage to take on this colossal challenge.
Eiffel the steel firm set up by the great French engineer. Eiffel built what was once the
tallest bridge in the world, the Garaby viaduct in southern France. Before getting round
the framing for New York Statue of Liberty and of course his signature tower in Paris.

But despite the company’s experience Eiffel’s director Marc Buonomo (steel Projec
Manager) knew he was taking a serious risk. It was a gamble for the company because if
there had been a mistake if it hadn’t worked it would have been the whole company.
They’ve fabricated the massive sections that would make up the road deck in the
company’s steel factories. This immense jig saw puzzle involved manufacturing 2200
separate sections weighing up to 90 tonnes and some of them 22 mts long. Their accuracy
is measured with a laser to with in a fraction of a milli meter. The huge square tubes of
the central spine that should make the deck rigid. The triangular side panels will be
welded only in the side to create the width for a four lane high way. To meet the
punishing schedule Buonomo automated the manufacturing with a two headed welding
robot and a plasma cutting machine. Each cutting pattern or template is programmed in to
the computer then the machine automatically blazes its way through the steel. The torch
reaches a scorching 28,000 º centigrade, that’s five times the temperature of the earth’s
inner core. But cutting and welding was the easy part the hard part was getting these
monster sections to hundreds of kilo meters from the factories to Millau.

The routes had to be planned with precision to avoid major damage. The police
coordinated safety and clearances. Even with that level of preparation some obstacles felt
as if they’re cutting it just too close to comfort. And this was no one of event to build the
viaduct took over 2000 of these extraordinary road convoys.

The components arrived at the assembly plant set up one on either side of the valley.
Here the pieces of the massive jig saw puzzle were welded together to form the two
halves of the deck. But getting these two halves to span the valley on top of the world’s
tallest bridge piers would be a major challenge. They’d be the first team to put a road
deck on a pier taller than an eighty storey sky scrapper and pushing bridge building
beyond anything attempted before, they planned to slide the entire 2½ km road deck over
in two colossal pieces.

The bridge’s chief engineer Jean-Marie Crimer was one of the few people who believed it
could be done. All the engineers who know this method who’re already in the know
didn’t believe it was possible. If the team had got their calculations wrong the entire
structure could collapse into the valley. We thought a solution to the construction which
was the launch of the bridge from the two sides. One part from the Lassa Plato one on the
Rouge Plato and to push them from the two sides and to make them come and meet here
above the river Taarn.( Jean-Marie Crimer)

Smaller bridges use a similar technique a powerful set of hydraulic ranch literally pumps
the deck from one side to the other. But Millau would be the longest launch ever
attempted over the highest piers in the world and the results could spell disaster. The deck
is so slender it would bend and collapse if it were pushed out over the 342 mt spans
between each pier. The farthest any one is previously managed is less than half that
distance.

The first part of the solution was simple fit a pylon so its cables support the front of the
deck as it goes out over the valley. Then construct temporary steel support towers that
half the spans to a more manageable 171 mts. These steel towers were a construction feat
in themselves. The largest over 170 mts high the tallest ever built and they needed to
carry a massive load. 7000 tones as the leading edge of the deck together with the first 90
mt pylon slideover and simply pushing this enormous weight over the top of the
vulnerable piers would bring them crash to the ground. This was the night mare scenario.
If we’ve done the conventional launch we’d have knocked the piers over like the pins in a
bowling alley. Someone needed to reinvent the way this type of bridges built and it’s
Marc Bonomo with Jean-Marie Cremer who came up with the break through. The basic
principle can be demonstrated with a heavy box and a wobbly table. With a normal
launch you will knock out the piers. I want to advance the deck over the pier, but if I
push the deck from here I would knock over the piers. Because they are so tall. The idea
is to install a launching system on top of the pier and that way if I push the deck it has no
effect on the stability of piers and the piers won’t fall over.

The trick is to use a series of these launching systems to jack up the deck and inch it
forward. Each system uses two wedge shaped locks under each side of the deck. The
upper wedge is pulled forward by the hydraulic ramp. It slides up the slope of the
lower wedge at the same time lifting it with the deck from its supports and
advancing it 600 mille meters. The lower wedge then retracts dropping the deck on
to its supports. The upper weight returns to its original position and the whole cycle
begins again. Four of these clever devises are placed on each pier all programmed to
work at exactly at the same time. The result is that together they pick up the entire road
way and shunt it forward but if one fails or gets out of the step it could spell disaster. The
force could push the bridge piers apart till they collapse.

When you are up there and you see Millau 300 mts below you will ask yourself was this a
good idea? The future of the entire project was now hanging on the prototype and it had
never been tested.

It’s the morning of February 2003, do or die day for the world’s tallest bridge. Everything
is about to be put to the test. Flexibility of the deck, the strength of the temporary piers
and the pioneering hydraulic ramp system. Even Buonomo the man in charge of the
launch had his own doubts. As it had never been done before I have to tell you I had fear
that it wouldn’t work. The pumps kick in, the pistons start to push and the deck begins its
huge journey across the valley. The moment I heard the motor start I put my finger on the
deck and I could feel my finger move. Every four minutes the deck advanced 600 mille
meters across the valley. Surveyors tracked its progress. But it was still a nail biting time
as they watched the unsupported deck crossing the void. Eventually the deck reaches the
safety of the first pier. 204 mts down only 2256 to go.

The launching system seemed to be working as planned. The engineers were feeling
optimistic. But as the deck advances into space it will become more vulnerable to the
wind which can reach a 130 kms an hour. Unfortunately the road deck has the shape of an
up side down air plane wing and the team’s greatest fear was that this wind could simply
take off. The engineers kept a close eye on the wind and weather conditions. When they
were satisfied there was a three day weather window that the wind wouldn’t exceed 85
kilo meters an hour. It gave the construction team the go ahead and the deck launch could
continue. The reason for this precaution is simple strong winds can literally tear a bridge
apart.
In 1940 Washington state built a suspension bridge across the Tukomenaros on the US
north west. It opened with a grand ceremony on July 1. But the celebrations were short
lived. The bridge had a major problem, the wind. Girders beneath the deck designed to
make the bridge rigid actually blocked the wind causing the road way to ripple
alarmingly. Locals soon doubted galloping girty. On the seventh of November with a
wind less than 70 kilometers an hour the bridge begins to twist violently. And at 11 am
time runs out the galloping girty. The wind sends the bridge crashing into the river.

Wind tunnel testing is now a standard procedure as a direct result of galloping girty. For
the Millau bridge they analyzed the wind in the Taarn valley over 18 months then
recreated those conditions in the wind tunnel. Wind engineer Olivier Flamond was
shocked by the results. The average wind speed was relatively low but because of the
such strong turbulence encouraged very fast big winds.

The rugged terrain creates serious turbulence at the height of the road deck. Winds peak
at a 130 kilometers per hour that’s hurricane force. They tested every aspect of the bridge
to analyze the risks, piers, pylons and critically the deck. But its not just the aero
dynamics of the finished bridge. They needed to find out how it would behave when its
most of risks during the launching of the deck. Olivier and his team reached a chilling
conclusion, the winds they have measured were strong enough to blow the unsecured
deck off its supports and send it crashing hundreds of feet to the valley floor.

And then the night mare began on the 22nd of August 2003 six months into the deck’s
launch one of the launch systems failed leaving the deck hanging in the wind. To make
matters worse the weather men were predicting storms. So far these massive pumping
machines have worked perfectly. But the fact is they were prototypes and due to the
frantic schedule they’d never been tested. The problem was that the non stick Teflon
between the sliding surfaces had ripped and the friction generated was too much for the
hydraulic rams to push against but unfortunately no one had planned on replacing parts of
these monster machine mid launch on the top of the massive concrete pillar. This was
very bad news for the man who staked his reputation on the system.

It was the maximum stress like poisoning your mouth. I won’t forget that. (Marc
Bunonomo). Re examining their calculations they realized the cause for the problem.
They had under estimated the forces below the surfaces. But they wouldn’t be able to
repair it with out the necessary spare parts the clock was ticking and Marc Bunonomo
needed the solution fast. When the Apollo 13 came back with that incident the NASA
engineers requested they did the inventory of everything there was on board to know how
to fix it.

The Millau team did an inventory. They realized that the other launching machines not
yet being used could be split to provide the new Teflon services they needed. Working all
through the night the team extended the access platform. This allowed them to take out
the 5 meter long two tone steel ridges, replace the Teflon and reassembled the launching
machine. By 8 am the next morning it was ready to resume the launch. The rest of the
week the predicted storms arrived and another set of launching machines wore out. So
when the deck finally made it to the safety of the next pier the team breathed a major sigh
of reief.

You don’t forget that. I won’t forget it. For four hours I was really scared. (Marc
Bunonomo). The two decks continued their journey across the valley, day after day; week
after week for a full fourteen months to meet each other mille meter by mille meter.

By May 2004 they’ve reached a critical phase. From the northern end the shorter deck
had traveled 717 mts in the space to reach its final resting place. From the south the
longer deck extended over 1.5 kilo meters. Only the section over the river, the one point
where it was impossible to erect a temporary pier divided them.

But would they meet as planned, if they caught their calculations wrong built the biggest
white elephant in Europe. Even the man behind the whole project had his doubts. I was
not convinced at all that the two parts of the deck could meet exactly with the perfect
geometry. The odds were against them, calculating such a feat so precisely is a Herculean
task.

Firstly the two starting points on the northern and the southern slopes of the valley were
at different heights. Secondly the bridge has a subtle curve to it. As a result each steel
panel which makes up the road deck had to be cut and welded with extreme precision. It
would be an engineering triumph if they got these two sloping curved decks to meet as
required. The team checked the weather reports with the wind inside the safety limits
they gave the go ahead for the final push.

The rams began to drive the deck’s leading edge off the safety of pier three towards its
destination. At this point a total of 21 launching systems needed to move at exactly the
same moment to avoid any disaster. If anything were to go wrong now the man
responsible would be Marc Buonomo. Everyone asked me how can you be so sure that
everything would go straight. So to be sure that they were going to the right place I had
the GPS put on the front. So I could see the gap between the theoretical and the real
position.

Over the next two days and nights the deck advances 600 milli meters every time towards
its final resting place. The world’s media are watching the critical meeting of the decks.
And to add to the pressure the French Prime Minister is due to drop in to celebrate the
event. The deck pushes forward, now with only the centimeters separating the two
sections a magnum of champagne is hung between them to mark the moment. At last
union the two massive steel decks have traveled high over this valley a total of 2.5
kilometers and when they check they are aligned to with in one cm. That’s accurate to
within 99.9999 percent. All the measuring all the calculations have paid off. They’ve
nailed it.

The decks have been joined and the team have reached the final phase of the project. But
there were still worries to meet the schedule and the problems won’t over yet everyone
could see the dramatic undulations in the flexible steel deck. Even some hardened bridge
builders wondered about its structural integrity.

Marc Buonomo: It was a huge surprise for everyone. All the engineers said we knew steel
is flexible, but not that flexible. The team were relying on the pylons and cables to pull
the deck straight. Each massive pylon is 90 mts high and weighs 700 tones, the
equivalent of 85 London buses. Placing them in position on the slender deck high above
the valley floor would go beyond anything ever attempted.

Once again Marc Buonomo had a plan. You know the first people to make vertical pylons
were the Egyptians. Buonomo adapted a technique used in ancient Egypt to erect obelisks
in the sands. On top of the road deck the team put up two enormous steel towers both of
them secured by cables and equipped with hydraulic system capable of raising a
thousand tones. The 700 tone pylon is then lifted by the hydraulics. As it rises it pivots
little by little until it’s vertical. It’s then lowered safely on to its anchorage point.
Buonomo’s 4000 year old technique worked to perfection.

With all 7 pylons in place the team could attach the cable stays that could straighten the
rippling deck and give it the strength to cope with full traffic loads. They hover. The
weight of the road way is now over 40,000 tones equivalent of a cruise ship and the 154
cable stays should prevent it from shagging or collapsing. The strongest stay is made up
of 91 individual steel strands and at the breaking strength of 25,000 tones, strong enough
to hold back 25 jumbo jets all at full throttle. As the cable’s stays are tentioned the ripples
in the road deck are pulled straight. Over the 2.5 km deck the ripples are now no larger
than the size of a thumb. They are finally on the home straight road surface goes on
adding a further 10,000 tones to the load. That’s like driving 153 battle tanks on to the
deck.

But before it could open to the public the team needed to know that the bridge is safe. It
would have to pass one crucial test. After three years the construction team building
France’s Millau viaduct the world’s tallest bridge are about to find out if they’ve got their
calculations right. On a single span cable Stay Bridge like the Normandy Bridge a large
load on the main section is no problem because the cables are attached to solid ground
and can’t give. On the Millau viaduct and its eight spans the cables are attached to the
deck of the adjacent sections. A load on one section will cause it to drop pulling the stays
down. As the pylons leave in, the matching stays are pulled upwards lifting the
neighbouring decks and causing the dangerous rippling effect.

It’s right now the team put their bridge to the test. These 28 trucks have a combined
weight of over 900 tones. They are now positioned in the critical point mid span. The
engineers hold their breath, measurements are taken. The span bends just 26 cms, this is a
triumph for the engineers. The bridge was designed to cope with more than double that.

Four weeks later on December 14, 2004 President Jaques Chiraq officially opened the
Millau Bridge, a proud moment for the whole of France. Just over a three years of
construction has produced the tallest bridge in the world designed to last at least 120
years. And against the odds the project manager even broke the champagne on time, but
that’s not what he is most proud about. Now remember because in construction sites there
are often accidents. As that we have no serious accidents, nothing more than a minor
injury.

As soon as it open to the public the bridge was an instant success. But the real test isn’t
till its first summer when the French all take their annual vacation. No one ever expected
anything like this. Numbers peaked at more than 50,000 vehicles a day and over seven
dollars per car that’s great news for the construction company, pouring back their 478
million dollar investment in the project.

This was an epic bridge to build but it’s just as epic to maintain. Tierry and Franc are
assigned pier two, the world’s tallest bridge pier. This structure is not a solid concrete
block; it’s a series of vast hollow spaces. Their job today is to test the communication
system and electric circuits on each of the seven circle floors. This involves a 343 meter
climb going hand over hand up a ladder for the rest of the day. By dusk when Tierry
finally reaches the summit at the pylon he may be exhausted but there is a pay off. You
got a fantastic view from here a 360º panorama. The tallest bridge in the world has
become an icon.

But this is creating problems no one had ever imagined. Locals have been taking over the
bridge as a platform to get media attention for their causes. This crowd was hoping that
driving sheep over free way in the sky would help them to get more farming subsidies.
Hosse’s Job is to prevent this kind of incident from creating a danger. But in this bridge
the incidents keep on happening. An alarm triggered by a motion detection system means
there is a stop vehicle on the bridge. Immediately Hosse dispatches a colleague to deal
with the situation. The last thing anyone wants is a multi car pile up on the 2½ km bridge,
quarter of a kilometer in the sky. Hosse zooms in his camera to reveal the man who has
left his car and is sitting dangerously on the crash barrier. The driver is propably only
broken down already one man who stopped climbed over the wind barrier and jumped to
his death. Bruno in the wheels, thankfully it’s no more than an irresponsible photographer
who was sent on his way.

You could say the Millau bridge is a victim of its own success. It’s definitely become a
major tourist destination. 700,00 visitors in the first nine months. Fortunately most of
them who visit are off the bridge to take their photos. It’s magnificent. I came 600 kilo
meters to see Millau Viaduct. There is only one thing to say it’s extraordinary. They
drove because it is a world beating structure but also it is incredibly beautiful, delicate
and minimal. Not what you would expect from a structure that’s nearly a third taller than
any other bridge on the planet. And architect Lord Norman Foster has achieved his aim to
give the driver the sensation of soaring. As you leave these platoes you do fly; you fly
across this bridge literally you’re above the clouds and the result certainly pleases the
man who dreamt it all about.
To see erected this bridge which I have imagines fifteen years ago is something I cherish.
This is the longest pure cable stay bridge in the world, the tallest road way in the world
and of cousre at 343 meters it is the tallest bridge ever constructed.