First few days of holiday

Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post - I’m glad to hear the images look ok. It’s time I posted some photos as we are already nearly halfway through our 12 days and I’ve taken loads of pictures!

The weather hasn’t been that great so far, but it’s due to be (too) hot for most of the rest of the trip - but at least sun and warmth will bring the butterflies out to play. 😄

Our first stop was Cordes sur Ciel, one of France’s ‘Most Beautiful Villages’. It’s perched high up on a hill in the Tarn department with fantastic views all around.

Monday we went to Albi, the capital of the Tarn department and built on the banks of the Tarn river. It has an enormous and very unusual brick cathedral, austere on the outside yet incredibly ornate inside. I’ll post more of this cathedral after our return as it’s quite amazing!

Looking up at the ceiling:

On our way to Millau for the night, we stopped at a strange place called the “Rougier de Camares”, where there is a whole valley with weird outcrops of red rock, which has unusual vegetation due to the iron in the rock, and the clay strata mixed in with it.

Yesterday was grey and cool but we visited a vulture museum in a scenic gorge, the Gorge de la Jonte. They had an observation deck full of spotting scopes and people who work there helping with finding the nests - thanks to them we saw a Black Vulture in a nest on a tree top, with a little youngster’s head bobbing up and down - still very distant, even with the scope, but a fantastic experience. There is only one nesting couple of black Vultures here, but over 200 nesting Griffon Vultures, needless to say we saw loads of Griffons! We were very impressed with the museum which was very informative, modern and interactive.

I will wait until I’m home to post K’s vulture photos, but this is the kind of scenery :

Yesterday’s photos will wait till the next post. As before, these are all SOOC, but they are mostly taken with our newish Canon 90D, which K tried but found too sensitive with his long lenses for bird photography (it has 35Mpixels) so he’s gone for a Canon mirrorless one which he is happy with now. So it’s mine! I’m using a 18-135 lens and am still learning how to use the camera - don’t know what half the buttons are yet. 😁