Le Tour est Fini - Paris

Things have been pretty hectic lately, and I haven’t quite got round to finishing off this last bit of my Tour travelogue. But when a friend sent me this link, I had to get back to it! I got interviewed quite a lot around the way, including by the guy who wrote this… http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/2007-07-29-3151115162_x.htm

This article got quoted all around the world! From Australia to Taiwan to North America to Europe.

Here’s a magazine journalist interviewing the bunch of aussies I was with.

So, I arrived in Paris and dropped my stuff off at the hotel in Montmartre before skooting over to the nearest bar to watch the all important last contre la montre. Edge of the seat stuff, as forget Cadel overtaking Contador, suddenly there was the threat of him losing second place to Levi! Still, all well in the end, deep breath and then off to see the sights.

I was happy to see that breakdancing is alive and well!

Then it was time to do some reconnoitring over on the Champs Élysées, where I met up with the pink combie guys again, Mick and Grant.

After a stroll along the Seine, we had some dinner in the Latin Quarter. It was noticeable that the only less than perfect food I had in France was in Paris.

The hostel I was staying in was a bit of a step up from the last time I stayed in Paris, where the cheap places were so full I ended up paying less to have a mattress on the floor! This time I had a half decent breakfast (for France at least – they don’t normally do breakfast really). And a view of sacre cœur!

Then, after all that, it was time to head off to my last day of the tour. So sad, I’d had the best time ever.

Once again, there was no shortage of Australians on the stage, and they were certainly prominent amongst the truly dedicated. I got in at 9am (the cyclists were expected about 4pm) and found I was far from being the first one there. I joined up with this group as they had a top spot right on the bend in front of the arc de triomphe.

I had more fun than you’d expect standing around in the rain waiting for the race. I did get wet socks, but I snuck into a shop and held them under the hand dryer for a while (mmm, warm socks, is there anything better?)

Clearly, a good display of aussie pride was called for on a day like this, so Skippy got a bit of an outing. Flags thrown over the barriers were a bit of a problem for the gendarmes, (“but the sponsors, they have paid for this, yes?”

In amongst the big group of aussies, with a few scattered americans and dutch and norweigans, was one little French lady who’d been there all alone from the very beginning. She stuck it out with a smile all day. Here was another chance for me to practice my French, which she seemed very grateful for as she had no other French people around to talk to at all!

Time went on, the race got closer, the people kept coming and we kept ourselves amused trying to start a Mexican wave. We had some good response from the people across the way, but it fell down somewhere in the middle. There’s always one….

Turned around from my place on the barrier at one point and remembered why I’d got there so early!

Time for my last caravan, although no goodies this time. And this time a few of the million odd transport trucks got in on the action – man, you should have seen them flying round that bend!!! Getting some nice jackknife action happening there.

I didn’t get any photos of the race going past, which it did about 7 times, preferring instead to just soak up the action as it came round. One Spaniard in the crowd had a nifty phone with TV on it, so could give us updates on the breakaways.

And then, all too soon, it was over for the year. After the race, all the teams came round on a victory lap, or glad to have made it lap, however you want to see it, in reverse team position order. Predictor Lotto got a massive cheer, particularly when everyone saw another matilda in the midst! That’s Cadel (well done Cadel) with the flag. We tried to get him over for autographs, but the media guys had all had him first so he was starting to lag a long way behind the rest of the team and apologised but went on.

Jens Voight on the other hand! Jens spent a fair bit of time down under, and is known to have a real fondness for aussies. The group I was with had previously called him over at one of the village departs earlier in the race. He’d had a chat, signed their flag and told them a bit of a story. One of the guys had noticed that he was wearing a black wristband, in the livestrong style (except for the black bit of course) and asked him what it was all about. He replied that Stuey (O’Grady) had had them made up for the rest of the team (team CSC that is), for those times out on the road when things were tough and you were struggling to keep going. And in true aussie style, the inscription? “harden the f**k up”. Love it.

So the guys waved him over again, and he remembered them from last time. Russell, tongue in cheek, held out his aussie cap and next thing you know, after a few complaints about the size of Russell’s head, Jens Voight is riding down the Champs Élysées with an green and gold cap where his CSC one used to be!

Not surprisingly, Russell shown here in his new CSC cap was pretty happy about all this!

There go Discovery, with two jerseys, a third, the team victory (and of course now they don’t exist because they have no sponsor, what sort of world is this)… Well done Alberto….



One more (glorious) night in Paris, then, alas, home to the rain. *sigh.

Next up… Mossley.

Le Tour Part 6 - On the way back to Paris

Good news for the non cycling fans – there are no velos in this part.

There is however a picture of St Emilion I forgot to add last time….



I woke up in yet another lovely little camping spot (“Aire”) along the autoroute to the sound of the start of the French holiday month of August. *Everyone* goes on holiday in France in August. England’s not quite as bad, but I’m writing this on my way back from the Newcastle office which was no more than half full. Of course, it’s the equivalent of xmas season over here – the school year starts in September.

Then I headed towards Cote d’Argent (literally Silver Coast, I guess they were on a role after the Gold Coast along the Mediterranean). Absolutely incredible!!!! I got there pretty early, about 9am, parked in an extensive but empty area, walked to the beach….. GASP - an Australian quality surf beach! Magical. The people did arrive later on, but there was plenty of room for everyone. What the hell are all those people doing along the Cote d’Or? Sure, it was a little chillier than the bathwater down there, but still. I spent the day putting on sunscreen, reading, walking and taking regular dips. Felt a little overdressed in my bikini though I must say. I also started getting annoyed at the lifeguards who seemed to want to prevent people from going out to far (hey, I can handle surf, I’m an aussie!). But when I moved away for a bit more freedom I decided they weren’t so wrong after all, as it was pretty fierce surf. I met one surfer who said it was too big for them that day. It did make the (lack of) clothing choices made by the swimmers seem sensible though!

Then I was off again, seriously heading north this time. The next morning was spent walking through a beautiful, albeit somewhat damp forest near Paris. So I’d seen mountains, beaches, vineyards, farmlands, rivers and now forest. What a spectacularly beautiful country.

And then it was time to head back to the airport to drop off the car. It was a bit sad really, after nearly 4000 km and it certainly took me a while to clean it out. Still, I was now ready for Paris and the last leg of my Tour.

Le Tour Part 5 - Col d'Aubisque and Pau

PARIS (Reuters) - the number of accidents and of died on the roads increased in July, with 478 people having being killed in one month.

Well, I saw two of those I suspect on the highways, but generally I had no problem with the drivers in France. And I certainly saw a lot of French roads – I ended up driving nearly 4000 km in my two weeks.

Right, back to the tour! After Plateau de Beille, it was time to head to Col d’Aubisque. With a rest day and another big mountain stage in between, I wasn’t too hurried so I could enjoy the scenery, mind blowing as always! We got up to the top of the mountain in good time, and had the chance to go for a nice hike up the nearest peak.


And then there was the astounding Astana news! I couldn’t believe it!! So very disappointing, I had really hoped that Vino was clean. You’ve got to ask some serious questions about Kloden. I think I’ve already talked a little bit about how hard it was to get the overall picture of the tour when you’re actually on the tour. There’s no wonderful Phil Liggett to give you all the information you’ve ever needed. So it was really exciting just to find out what the latest astounding scandal was going to be each day.

The night before the tour was due to arrive, I met up with the guys from the pink combie van again, this time in tiny bar where groups of Basque and Aussies were competing with every available local instrument (various types of drums and stringed instruments, with a few cow bells and of course the big cow horn) to see how much music they could make! In amongst this we all had an amusing time as a French lad tried to coach the ultra ocker Grant on the best method of seducing the sexy bar maid. There were a lot of traps for the unwary!

The next day I was having lunch in the same place, watching the race progress on the little TV (no big screen on top of the hill this day due to space limitations), heard some familiar accents, turned around and met a couple of guys from Mossley. Now, there have been a few other things happening in my life besides just le Tour de France, one of which has been buying a house in a little village called Mossley. So little that these guys could pinpoint exactly where I’d bought. Le monde est petit.

Back to the hill as the race got closer, and surrounded once again by aussies we watched Rasmussen’s final victory for the tour, followed shortly by Contador and then Levi, who Cadel (go Cadel!) hadn’t quite managed to hang onto the back of (something that was to cause a few scary moments in the time trial). Once again it was fascinating watching the behind the scenes action behind the finish line, and this time I spent a while hanging onto a fence where the media were, next to the control doping van. Cadel went in, as did Rasmussen and a few others. They were in there for ages, and my experience watching people after a marathon was that if anyone was expecting a urine sample, then sit back with a good book. Even just to find a vein must have been hard the state these guys’ bodies were in.

I’ve said it before – I don’t want to cast any aspersions, Rasmussen and Contador did look a tad fresher than Evans, who I thought wasn’t going to make it down the steps for a moment. Boonen looked fine of course, flashing those white teeth at the cameras and interviewers who were lined up for their turn at an interview.

This mountain had two roads, one for the tour vehicles and one for me, so apart from a few curious locals and a million camping cars, there weren’t too many problems getting out.

A quick change of plans, and we managed to make it down to Pau to see the next day’s Village Départ!

On the way, a quick stop at the oh sooooo yummy boulangerie for breakfast (those almond croissants are heaven), pick up a paper and OMG!!!!! Rasmussen – gone. Cofidis – gone!!! OMG.

Pau seemed like a nice little town, or at least the area set up for the Départ was a lovely park.

I hadn’t realised that for this year’s race, the riders all had to sign on at the beginning of the race. So one by one they wandered down on their bikes and went up onto the stage to sign that day’s pledge. There was a big cheer for Cadel – aussies everywhere again. Not as big though as the one for the local lad born not 500 m from the line. Most of the riders seemed pretty relaxed compared to the end of the race… except for Rabobank. Those guys just looked bewildered and very tense. It was disappointing to hear some in the crowd give hooeys (French equivalent of a boo) given the very brave decision they’d made. Much later, on the Champs Elysée we (the big group of aussies I was with at that stage) gave them a big cheer as they went by on the lap of honour, and although the likes of Menchov gratefully acknowledged, they still looked very down.

Another interesting point was that of all the teams, Discovery team hung together (that was then, this is now of course given the latest Discovery news!). Levi, Contador, Big George etc all came up to sign together. I noticed that they all trained together before the time trials too.

Suddenly the riders were all lined up at the start line (sans yellow jersey of course), with such absolute chaos ahead of them it seemed incredible that they were ever getting out of there!

Then very quickly the road cleared (sort of) and away they went.

Of course, now Soler had that maillot a pois all sewn up. And didn’t Barloworld have a ripper first tour? And isn’t that just the least European team name in the field?

And that was the end of that day’s stage for me at least

Alas, I worked out that there was just no way I was going to make it Cognac for the time trial if I wanted to be in Paris the following day so I’m just going to have to go back to le Tour one day to see a time trial and I also never got to a feeding zone as I wanted. So instead I headed up to a small medieval town east of Bordeaux for a sunset over the vineyards, heritage listed village, more fantastic food in a courtyard with the light gently disappearing – magic. That was St Emilion.

Then it was back on the autoroute to find a place to sleep, headed for the coast. The lonely planet guide didn’t have much to say about it, but I thought I’d check it out and see if was marginally better as a beach than on the Med.

Le Tour Part 4 - Plateau de Beille

It was already getting on a bit when I started driving from Arles to Toulouse (looking to be on top of Plateau de Beille that night), but I still had to stop and try and take photos of the magical sunset over the fields of sunflowers. I was actually getting quite poetical, but I won’t torment anyone with anything more than simply saying I felt Van Gogh was on a winner with the light in this region.

I just made the last open petrol station before hitting the mountains, one of only about 4 times that I filled up on my big journey (why don’t we all have gutsy little cars that handle mountains and fast highways with no problems on just 4 L / 100 km?). It was getting near midnight as I followed the road, but I didn’t really need all those stops to check the map – I could have just followed the camping cars. I did though, after the experience coming out of Paris and one or two other slight diversions (have I mentioned that I’m getting a GPS next time?).

The Plateau de Beille was to be my first real mountain top finish. It was near midnight by the time I hit the village at the bottom of the mountain, but there was still a huge party going on – bands and crowds of people and lots of lights in this absolutely minute little town. I later learnt that my pink combie mates had hit the party and decided to stay down there, riding their bikes up some of the way for the actual race day. I was tempted, but I would have had to have walked 20 km rather than the 10 km up Col du Galibier, and I really wanted to be at the very finish of this monster stage (a very important one as it turned out of course).

So I crawled on up the super steep, tight mountain in thick fog, passing the usual precariously parked camping cars on the side and after this dreamlike journey I finally arrived in the big carpark of the ski station that was hosting the finish. Here I met the security guards, who were very friendly but made it clear that I had to move first thing in the morning or be in the way of the Tour. Fortunately they had the key to the station so I could go in to the toilets and I got a nice hot chocolate the next morning after walking around in the mist taking photos of the magic sunrise. A little bit of French goes a long way in France!

The ski station was also a working farm, so after re parking my car in a nice little spot, I went for a bit of a walk. We were above the fog for most of the day.

Once again, I wasn’t alone on the mountain! Remember, this is still a day and a half before the race arrives.

On my walk, I found the GR10 trail, which is one of two that traverse the Pyrénées from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean (the other, the GR11, is on the Spanish side). I have a secret ambition to do this one day on horseback, one of many dreams highly unlikely to ever happen! I also found this sign, and was amazed by how much lower I was than on top of Aiguilles de Midi in the Alps, and how much colder I was than in Chamonix which was still a good 1000 m above sea level. Of course, just to put it all into perspective, Mt Kosciusko is 2228 m above sea level.

By the time I got back to the station, the party was in full swing! It was all good traditional (and very loud) French accordion music that morning with the beer flowing as freely as the café.

I got a bit of a laugh by pointing out how the cows were “tranquille”, so close to all the action, which sort of translates as “everything’s sweet mate, no worries”. And look, bells! The sheep on the next mountain had them too, they were actually really loud first thing in the morning.

And while we’re talking about animals, heaps of people had brought dogs with them. They were all pretty well behaved.

That afternoon, the weather set in in a big way, some of the only rain I saw on my trip. I wasn’t too worried because by then it was time to sit inside and watch the ultra exciting contre la montre (time trial – ever wonder why it always had clm on TV? Lit – “contest the watch”) where Cadel managed a fantastic race (and as we now know, should have won it).

Then it was back to the bar for a few more beers, where I met a bunch of Basque farmers. These guys all had an annual pilgrimage to the Tour, and were definitely getting into the swing of it. I got talking to one of Basque heritage but who’d grown up in California (with all the noise and beer and wacky accents my French wasn’t up to much conversation), so they started including me in their rounds and eventually invited me back to their awesome long tent for a stew that almost rivalled Nige’s best camping efforts. The ladies were taking photos of me for souvenirs and the kids couldn’t stop staring! After a rowdy card game that seemed to involve lots of lying and cheating we headed back and I caught up with my friendly security guards. It was late and dark and the fog had descended again. I went for a walk around to the empty carpark where I’d first arrived the night before, to be greeted with the utterly surreal sight of the massive Tour trucks looming up out of the mist. It was truly freaky.

Next morning, I woke up and the empty carpark was now completely full, in a very organised spiral that later that night unravelled itself again to move onto the next village. Amazing. The more I saw of the Tour, the more I was stunned by the incredible organisation.

Also there in force that morning – the Gendarmerie.

In no time at all, it was time to wander over the finish line that had magically appeared and get ready to wait for the race. Here I met lots of aussies again, including a few I’d met on Col du Galibier before using my broken French to ingratiate my way into a group of elderly cycling fans (some of whom had cycled up the mountain too mind you). One gentlemen took my picture – neat spot hey? I was well excited.

Being right on the finish line, we got a sort of mini caravan on foot, and so I got enough pretzels to last me till Paris, as well as a few competing sponsors’ hats (ever wondered why everyone at the finish line has a yellow cap on?). Later the real caravan whizzed by as well – one of the many mobs getting publicity was the Tour Down Under. They never gave me anything the bastards!

There was plenty of other things going on to keep us entertained, including the people who were riding one of the official “pre tours” getting up on the podium to have their photo taken, but mainly of course there was the big France 2 TV screen on some sort of swivel arrangement on top of the truck. For the first time I realised how much the crowd was with Cadel (GO CADEL!!). I don’t think they’d known much about him before his big time trial effort, (except for a few die hard cycling fans like one new friend who could quote his VTT wins and prompted me with Phil Anderson’s name and best position when I couldn’t remember) but the whole crowd was cheering him on as he caught up with every one of Rasmussen’s attacks, and then groaned loudly when he finally fell behind Rasmussen and Contador.

The race got closer, and all was chaos just over the finish line with photographers everywhere. Somehow as Contador came through, having miraculously as usual remembered to do up his sponsor’s jersey just before the finish line with Rasmussen right on his tail (despite the agreement they’d apparently made on the road), he managed not to collide with anyone. He shot straight past into the arms of his manager, and the waiting media. The circus behind the finish line was fascinating, it was all happening for a while. Once again I was torn between watching and taking photos – I did get a photo of Rasmussen’s yellow arse shoot past, but then I seriously got the camera out when Cadel stopped just metres from me!

One thing that really stood out to everyone, was that that unlike the first two Cadel was absolutely knackered. He could barely sit on his crossbar unsupported, and how he managed to talk for the interviews I don’t know. I don’t want to throw any aspersions on the eventual winner at all, but here was a man who so blatently was not on drugs. I think that’s why there were so many enthusiastic aussies following the race – unlike the totally disillusioned Germans say, we had an almost indisputably clean champion to follow. And what a nice guy! He came across the line giving Kloden a pat on the back as they’d obviously helped each other up the mountain.

How’s this for a shot – can’t see the man in person because he’s so surrounded by cameras, but I can see his face still on the big screen!

All around the cyclists were coming in and their team were rushing over to get them into warm, circulation aiding gear. A few were changing shirts – man those guys have some serious tan lines.

They got the winners up on the podium amazingly quickly, except for Boonen of course! We all waited a while for him. The podium was a bit weird – only the photographers were really clapping, the crowd were quite silent. The Discovery team definitely have the sexiest colours I reckon, although perhaps black’s not the most comfortable in the heat. I suggested to one of the cyclists I met that the FdJ white might be the way to go, but he looked at me askance and told me in no uncertain terms that it was not! A little on the revealing side I believe he was inferring…

Btw, Bernard Hinault is way cool. And Boonen is super tall – he dwarfed everyone.

And then in no time they were all packing up ready to go. The cyclists in the team cars got out first behind the police on the motos. (Cadel’s in there – GO CADEL!!) But with only one way down the mountain, it was going to be hours before anyone not part of the Tour was allowed to move, so it was time to sit back down and relax for the evening for some.

I decided to go for a walk down the mountain and watch the cavalcade go past. Along the way I met this group (hmm, did you guess they were Norwegians?) who were happy to chat in English. They tried to scare me with their wicked schnapps, but I downed that in one hit and they were mightily impressed.

But watching the thousands of media vehicles go by, I suddenly thought hey, where’s SBS? When I got to the top I suddenly saw an SBS car, so I wandered over and said hi. Mike Tomalaris was waiting for his editor, so we chatted for about an hour, and he had some interesting little insights about the behind the scenes. Those guys had some super long days in the mountains, with maybe 4 hours sleep per stage if they were lucky. I was also able to catch up on some of the amazing news, like the German media pulling out and a few things Robbie had said. But what was also interesting is that I’d seen quite a few things that he hadn’t as well.

I said goodbye when his editor finished his job (there were only 4 guys from SBS covering the race – they must have had to work hard getting between village départ and village arrivée every day). Then, as there wasn’t much point going anywhere that night I settled down for the night in the somewhat more subdued atmosphere.

Le Tour Part 3 - Cote d'Azur, Arles and the Camargue

Except that there was no actual Tour on my day along the Cote d'Azur (you’ve already heard my one little Tour news catch up with the Italian newspaper).

I drove a very long way, or at least for a very long time. One of the few bum steers from the Lonely Planet guide – it suggested the drive through Digne le Bains would be a treat because of the lavender. It failed to mention how long and tedious the drive would be if it wasn’t lavender season. Anyway, I eventually got closer to the Mediterranean Coast (le Cote d’Azur – lit the Blue Coast). I decided to start my coastal journey at Cannes rather than Nice, which is fine as I’m sure I’ll get a chance to see Nice sometime soon (the Cote d’Or, or Gold Coast). Cannes looked like a lovely place to be if you had no interest in finding a car park. Once I got within the city limits, I don’t think I got out of second gear for the rest of the day

I did eventually find a park, and went for a walk along the beach. Now, I’d suspected that my (ie Queenslander) idea of a beach might not be that of everyone else’s in the world, but still I was a bit disappointed. The tiny patches of rock that held masses of extremely over tanned (and prematurely aged) persons were amazing. I’d lost my bottle of sunscreen, so I went into a little shop that also sold yachting accessories and paid €20 for a bottle (to be fair, it was good sunscreen and smelt of apricots).

Still, the weather was glorious and the water truly was an amazing colour. I drove all the way along for the whole day until I got away from the more glitzy areas and found a rather nice little seaside town towards Toulon where I stopped and had my first proper restaurant meal in France. Absolutely superb. It’s a good thing I was spending so much time camping on the mountains in France, because otherwise I might have spent a lot of money and gained a lot of weight eating the scrumptious food (although really not that expensive when you’re thinking in pounds). The other great thing about this restaurant is that I’d spend the day being too paranoid about thieves to leave my bag in the car and go for a swim. But the nice people in the beach restaurant not only minded my bag, but they also lent me a towel so at 9pm I went for a lovely twilight dip in the warm sea, all alone as the crowds had left for the day.

As I headed all the way around the coast, I looked back and took this photo.




Then, as night fell, I headed out onto the blessed autoroute again. I forgot to say that earlier I’d gotten caught up in the Tour again, having to make another detour around a road they would be travelling along. So I decided to skip Marseille (something to look forward to for another day) and head on out to somewhere near the Camargue, which I’d always wanted to see since reading about the wild white horses of the Camargue as a child. I looked at the map, and managed to make it to a place called Arles before needing to stop for a sleep (in a shopping centre carpark – cities were definitely less romantic places to camp in).

And what a place! It turned out that this city I’d never heard of had masses of Roman history, and more, was the place where Van Gogh had painted most of his paintings, gone mad, cut off his ear, etc etc. He’d raved about the gorgeous light, and I had to agree with him. The whole area from here to Toulouse was pastel. So very pretty, yet so different from both the magnificent alps and the sparkling Mediterranean coast. This was France for you, not a huge country by Australian standards, but they pack a hell of a lot of variety (scenery, climates, food and more) into that space.

I was a little disconcerted when I started driving around town, and found myself lost in a maze of tiny streets. I’m not sure if this photo shows exactly how well this street fitted around my car – the odd early morning pedestrian had to leap up into any doorway handy.

I had thought I was going to be having another day sans Tour, but it turned out that the Marseille to Montpellier stage was going right through the middle of Arles! So first I went on a walking tour around town with the aide of a €1 guide showing all the Roman, medieval, renaissance and Van Gogh treasures of town.

Here we have the garden of the hospital where Van Gogh was committed after that little ear lopping incident. Note the print of his painting of the garden in front of the garden – I think someone here might have been to some effort to keep that place the same.

Amongst the many treasures I came across en route was the massive Roman ampitheature. Where once gladiators entertained the crowds, today, with the safety benefit of scaffolding type seating over the older seats, the locals watch with great enthusiasm bull fights with the local Camargue bulls. I was told that unlike in Spain, the bulls here aren’t killed, merely deprived of a rosette upon their horns. I like to think that’s true.

What I really liked about the second photo is that if you open it up you’ll see that in this medieval arena, possibly the same passage where once the lions were sent down, you now have directions for the second class seating.

However, part of the walking tour was aimed at scoping out the best spot to watch the tour go by that day. A very different situation to that in the mountains of course – half way through a flat stage is not likely to produce the race altering dynamics that an incredibly hard mountain finish does. And I knew they would be absolutely flying past, so I tried to pick the trickiest, bendiest bit of the course to stand next to, in the hope they’d be going a tiny bit slower.

First though I went past this primary school class. The teachers had brought the kids out to enjoy the spectacle – how gorgeous!

Before moving to England late last year, I hadn’t been to Europe since 2001. And I’m sure that time I didn’t see any Aussie pubs. Now you’re as likely to spot something like this “Wallabeer” (huh) as you are an Irish pub. They’re actually quite nice inside, it’s like someone’s made a brief trip to an Ettamogah pub mixed with some sort of trendy inner city bar, mixed with a Steve Irwin park. I did think of mentioning that we have crocs not alligators, but decided my French wasn’t up to that. However, being the honorary Aussie in the pub I convinced them to turn the TV onto Eurosports so I could see what was happening in the race.

This is a bit of a common theme in this story. I did absolutely love being there at the Tour, and hope to go again one day. But... it was awfully tough trying to work out what was actually happening in the bigger picture without internet, tv, radio (in english at least, I heard plenty of talk about the tour en français) or even newspapers (although that was just me not thinking to pick one up most of the time).

Again I was in place to watch the caravan go by – a lot faster than last time, that’s for sure! PMU is like the TAB, a national betting agency that in the past has been responsible for handing out rather dangerous green “hands”, the reason for at least two accidents with the cyclists that I can remember. This year they were made of a softer sort of foam than the one that knocked Thor Hushovd around.

A quick flash, and there goes the peloton, Cadel safely tucked up amongst his team looking very comfortable. I had a good spot on top of some street furniture.

After the race had gone by, I walked back under the glorious sunshine over the glorious bridge to the glorious city centre where I wondered into a pub (Irish this time) to finish watching the race. Here I met a lovely couple of Norweigans, and after chatting for a while and watching the sprint finish they very kindly invited me back to their hotel for a swim (no dodginess intended :) ). So I raced back to my car and joined them in their converted monastery for a swim, and oh, glory of all glories, a shower! Now, there were showers along the road at service stations (although I did get told a couple of times that I had to be with one of the trucks to get in) and also I snuck into the odd caravan park for a shower, but this was a deluxe hotel and no risk of someone chasing me out. Lovely, I gave my heartfelt thanks then went off for yet another superb meal and then back to the carpark for sleep.

The next day I set out to visit the Camargue, my second and last true touristy thing in France as I booked a “safari”. Before the tour though I took a quick walk down to the bird hide (meeting some Americans I was later to meet again on the Champs Elysée watching the final race) and also down to the coast. Nice little beach, bit windy, but I loved the “WC for Dogs”.

I did get to see many white horses (not exactly “wild” these days) and black bulls.

And look! This is where Ricard! (the drink I was given in the Alps) comes from!

The lovely, well informed, but man of little english, tour guide explaining the habits of the flocks of flamingos behind us. Fortunately the Belgians and the Austrian girl could all speak at least 3 languages, so the english couple and I were fine.

As a further example, we were all able to understand the rather lengthy explanation of how this machine helped make rice production in the Camargue so uniquely productive….. (mmm, what I always needed to know).

Most importantly though, you have to remember that the Spanish bulls have horizontal horns (comical hand signals ensue) and the local bulls have vertical horns.



Tour over, I headed back to the car and was back on the road again – to the Pyrénées!