Very Nice Champagne

After Paris it was time to see some of the countryside of France and taste some of the local produce. Our first stop was Eparnay in Champagne - no prizes for guessing what this town is famous for! We spent the day wandering down Avenue de Champagne; including visiting two cellars and sampling several varieties of real champagne. The cellars were amazing, there is over 100km of caves under the town storing millions of bottles.

Our next stop was Cheverny, a small town in the Loire valley famous for chateauxs, so we spent a couple of days checking out some pretty amazing buildings and beautiful grounds. Cheverny chateaux even had an army of hounds.

 

From Cheverny we headed south to Sarlat La Caneda, a small medieval town in the dordogne region dating back to the 1300's. Full of history and character we enjoyed meandering down the small alleys. One afternoon, we headed out of town to take a canoe down the river, passing all the other medieval castles along the bank.

Following our stay in Sarlat we drove across France, literally, to frolick in the sun with european holiday makers in the ever popular Nice. Here we met up with our friend Amelia who decided on a whim to head to Europe and travel with us for a few weeks. We swam in the Mediterranean Sea, soaked up the sun on the pebbles and drank beers with the sunset in the background. It was a beautiful beach with crystal clear water but the pebbles made it difficult to stroll into the water gracefully, even for the glamorous French girls.

Since we were so close, we decided to spend an afternoon with the ultra wealthy in Monaco. After being dazzled by the mega yachts and the almost continual stream of Italian super cars, we headed to the casino, lost some Euro's and retuned to the beach.

 

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Paris

We arrived to Paris in the evening prior to the final stage of the tour, so we decided to head into town and grab something to eat. Our first impression of Paris is that there is lots of cafe's and restaurants. This is a place made for eating out. We ended up in the St Germain neighborhood and ate beef tartare. We also sampled frogs legs and snails in Paris.

 

Now it was Sunday, the final day of the tour, so our afternoon was set. However, we had a free morning so we took a leisurely stroll down the Seine to the Eiffel tower. The queue to climb to top was too long for us so we had a walk around the park to get a view of the tower. We then headed back to the Champ Élysées for the race stopping to see the Arc de Triumph on the way.

The next day was our first real sight seeing day. We succumbed to the hype and joined the queue to see the inside of the impressive Louvre. It was hard to enjoy the more famous pieces of art with the immense crowds but we did get to see the Venus de Milo and briefly glimpse the Mona Lisa.

We left the Louvre when our stomachs told us it as time and headed across the river. We picked up some paninis and macaroons and headed to the jardin de Luxembourg for lunch, an immaculate garden including a 17th century palace. This place was full of Parisians sun baking amongst the blooming flowers and budding artists using the beautiful surroundings as inspiration.

 

We then headed to Notre Dame to take in the impressive gothic cathedral. We were too late to climb the towers but we were able to sit in the cathedral and listen to some beautiful hymns. To counterbalance our godly experience we went to a cabaret show in the evening, lots of fun as long as boobies don't offend! The show consisted of singing, scantily clad girls and well muscled men dancing, elaborate sets, aerial acrobatics above our heads and a unicyclist.

 

On the next day we thought we would do a walking tour. We decided on a tour of the Latin quarter about the French revolution. This was morbid at times but really interesting. I am glad that the guillotine has been retired.

On our final day in Paris we took the train out to Versailles, the last home of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette before their heads came off, to get an idea of the opulence that the French population were revolting against. This was a grand indeed but like the Louvre the crowds were a bit much.

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Tour de France

One of the reasons we got a car was so we could follow the tour for a few stages. We also based our itinerary around being able to see some guy in a yellow jersey flash by.

Before we headed to the hills, we stayed a couple of days just outside of beautiful Biarritz on the southern edge of the west coast of France. This was a gorgeous city, and we got great weather while we were there.

 

From Biarritz we headed east into the Pyrenees mountain range. Our aim was to find a good campsite at the top of the hill for the next days stage. However, we hadn't studied the maps hard enough as our route was blocked by today's riders. As we had nowhere to go we stopped and watched the breakaway, peloton and stragglers ride past us in a cute little river town. We cheered them all along, including Cadel who was trailing Wiggins by about 30 seconds when he passed us (I think it blew out to a bigger difference by the end of the stage).

After waiting for the entire entourage to pass the cops opened up the road allowing us to continue on our way up the mountain to find a campsite. However, we didn't get far before we got stopped by another closed road, luckily after about an hours wait trying to communicate to friendly locals (and not getting very far) they reopened the road.

Once to the top, or near enough, we found a spot on the side of the road, to be our home for the next two nights. We had done some shopping so we set up a little picnic on side of the hill and watched the sunset over the Pyrenees with our French red wine and cheese.

 

 

The next day was what we had been looking forward to so after breakfast we headed up to the top of the hill to check out the finish line and to find our place to watch the some of the best riders climbing to the top. About an hour before the riders the caravan came through, basically this is about 30 floats from each of the sponsors that throw free stuff into the crowd. Anyway, in our one day of the Tour we scored hats, bags, free bottled water, a T-shirt, key rings, frisbees, cakes and nesquik.

 

As expected when the riders finally arrived, they each passed in the blink of an eye, despite having ridden over 140 km, a comparatively short day of riding, over some of the most grueling mountain passes in the Pyrenees. We had hoped that we would be able to see Cadel secure the yellow jersey, however it was Braddly Wiggins who had done enough by this stage to pretty much ensure his eventual victory.

Following our trip to the big hills we headed north to Paris in order to see the celebratory and final stage of the tour. After a relaxed morning consisting of baguettes, pastries and strolling the streets of Paris, we took up our spot on the Champs-Élysées. Traditionally when the riders reach this part of the course, the celebrations are put on hold and it all gets very competitive again for one last sprint to the finishing line. This year was no different with Mark Cavendish claiming his fourth consecutive stage victory in Paris. It was an amazing atmosphere, not too dissimilar to a very rowdy crowd at Flemington cheering home a champion racehorse.

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