Drowned village, Aveyron, France

Even though it was a lovely, bright sunny day, I've deliberately toned this one down as I found it such a sad place. It seems so sad to see the places where people once lived and worked.

Probably worth a look in large

The depth when full is over 60 meters, this farm would thus be about 55 meters down under water.
It is amazing that the footpaths are still visible along with walls separating fields, houses and entire forests of trees still standing.
One of the buildings is particularly poignant, with the window frame still in place opposite the fireplace.
Incredibly the bracken and the trees plated around the farmhouses are still visible.

Le barrage de Sarrans is a hydroelectric dam in the commune of Brommat sur la Truyère, in the Aveyron département in South West France.

The dam came into service in 1934 and has a perimeter of 35 kms, covering over 1,000 hectares of land including a lot of farms, a bridge and a village.

The dam was built mostly by foreign workers from Yugoslavia, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Algeria, Russia - over 50 of the workers died in the building of the dam.
A lot of German technicians worked on the dam - the majority of the works being paid by war damages from the Germans.

The law in France states that all hydroelectric dams must be thoroughly checked every 10 years, meaning that the water needs to be drained, although some of the checks are done by partially emptying the lakes and inspecting with aquatic robots.

This year was the first full emptying for 30 years.