I see Contador, I see Lance…Our next stop is the Tour de France!
So after our 35 minute walk + 20 minute beer break, we arrived at the location of the Tour de France stage finish. We were about 3 hours early, but the crowd was already packing in:
While we waited, we decided to hit the gift shop tent for some souvenirs, grab a beer, and some national potatoes. First place we found them with ketchup! Score!
We found a Livestrong car, and had to pose for tourist photos. ((And to my friend Cindy that incredulously asked, “THAT is what you wore to the Tour de France????”, the answer is YES! Why would you expect any different?))
I really wanted to lay all over the car & lick the windows, like the people did with the Ferrari on the Champs-Elysee. But I settled for this:
The sponsors of the Tour had organized a parade and they were throwing all sorts of free swag into the crowds. We managed to score some of these goodies, but we could not manage to get our hands on the elusive LCL Banque ball caps. We did get to enjoy the mist from girl spraying water into the crowd & enjoy a few unique floats in the parade. Apparently Fergie is big in France, because they played the same song on a loop for the entire 3 hour parade. Start singing Black Eyed Peas “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night” in your head, beginning NOW…
So after all that voyeurism…I mean, parade watching…we worked up an appetite! What? At least it’s not another wardrobe change…
Brian started to open up all the free stuff we amassed from the parade giveaways:
And we are still waiting for the big finish…Three hours sure is a long time when you are sitting on the side of the road drinking Heineken & eating French Fries…
…….And they arrived! Just like that, it was over. 3 hours of waiting for a 3 minute finish. That being said, it was SUPER EXCITING! The energy of the crowd was electrifying & the cyclists were whizzing by at breakneck speeds. Truly an amazing experience. I thought it would be fun, but did not expect to be so caught up in the excitement.
And the winners are:
What a great way to spend an afternoon.
After the excitement died down, we joined the crowd in walking back towards the town center. We knew the winners of the Tour were likely celebrating, and we had some celebrating to do of our own…today was, after all, our wedding anniversary! 🙂 More on how we celebrated our third year of marriage in the next post!
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