SymLinks not being followed in htaccess

I have CentOs with Apache.

In my httpd.conf I have

<Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory>

and further down

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin me@mydomain.com DocumentRoot /var/www/mydomain.com/public_html ServerName www.mydomain.com ServerAlias mydomain.com ErrorLog /var/www/mydomain.com-error_log CustomLog /var/www/mydomain.com-access_log common <Directory /> Options +FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> </VirtualHost>

And in my .htaccess in my public_html folder I have at the top:

RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymLinks

However, the links (e.g. a RewriteRule $ /error/mypage.htm [R=302,L]) are generated as:

/var/www/error/mypage.htm

rather than:

/var/www/mydomain.com/public_html/mypage.htm

any ideas?

thanks