The world's tallest bridge above Roquefort's valley — where the Tarn gorge, medieval glove-making, and sheep's milk cheese define the Aveyron
Millau is a small town in the Aveyron, famous for two things separated by 900 years: Roquefort cheese (made in caves 25km south, the oldest and most legally protected cheese in France) and the Millau Viaduct (opened 2004, designed by Norman Foster and Michel Virlogeux — at 343m the world's tallest road bridge). The town itself sits at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers in the Grands Causses (now a UNESCO World Heritage landscape) and was historically the glove-making capital of France (Millau gloves were worn at Versailles). The Tarn Gorge (Gorges du Tarn) running north from Millau…
Millau was the Roman Condatomagus, a major pottery centre producing Samian ware (terra sigillata) — millions of Gallo-Roman pots found across Britain and northern Europe were made in the kilns around Millau. After the Roman era, the town became a tanning centre (sheep hides from the Causses flocks) and then the centre of French glove-making, which reached its peak in the 18th–19th centuries. The Roquefort caves at nearby Combalou have been used for aging cheese since at least the 11th century (Roquefort received France's first AOC in 1925, the oldest protected cheese designation in the world).