htaccess symlink problem

I doubt this will be of any help to anyone else but for future reference.
Problem:
A content management system writes the URLs in <a> tags with a path e.g.:

/sites/mysite/AboutUs

but the customer wants the addressbar to show just:

/mysite/AboutUs

Solution:
Add a symbolic link from the apache root to the site directory e.g.

ln -s /var/www/sites/mysite /var/www/mysite

then add a .htaccess file in the site directory as follows:

Options +FollowSymLinks
Redirect /sites/mysite/ http://www.tld.com/mysite/

Seems simple enough but a potential head wrecker!
t4 terminal4 CMS