After a few years of watching the Tour de France on OLN and Verses, Sheila and I decided it was time to experience this first hand. So, we booked flights into Paris during the last week of the tour with the plan of spending a couple of days in museums and brasseries, then traveling to a couple of stages prior to the last stage in Paris. This is a quick account of our experience.
We arrived in Paris Tuesday morning and took the gar(train) from Charles Degaulle into central Paris and checked into our very Parisian and reasonable priced (80 Euro) per night hotel. This is a view from our hotel balcony. 
We decided to catch stage 17 which was a long race from Pau to Castelsarrasin. The finishing town of Castelsarrasin was located in deep France, so we took the speed train into Angouleme, which is the finishing town of both stage 18 and 19, and rented a car.
We arrived in Castelsarrasin at around 3:00 pm and positioned ourselves about 900 meters from the finish. We heard a lot about the wildly adorned and themed vehicles that roll through the course throwing out swag, and we weren’t disappointed. It’s like a parade on steroids. Every vehicle is pumping music and throwing scads of trinkets, usually by the handful. The crowds are scurrying everywhere to grab them up.
Don’t remember what the girls above were advertising. I just remember it was the El Diablo vehicle. Yes, I’m going to hell.
See all the yellow hats; they were given away like candy. One float had a religious theme with a dancing Padre. I was quaffing a beer as the float came by he reached down grabbed it out of my hands and rode away. I considered it absolution from my ogling of the el Diablo vehicle. Sheila wasn’t buying it.
The race came down to a four man break that sprinted for the win and was won by Daniele Bennati. There were still sprint points available for the green jersey, so even though he wasn’t in the break, the Tom Boonen train was in front of the peloton for the bunch sprint.
After the race we hung around to let the crowds die down. We decided to roam around the press area and ran into the Verses trailer. Bobke was finishing up his extended coverage and we were able to shake his hand and get his autograph.
On the highway back to Angouleme, we stopped at a gas station and ran into Robbie Venture and Bobke buying gas and getting some food. They both were very nice and approachable. We marveled at their enthusiasm after almost three weeks of covering the tour. We were tired after only one day.
The next day was Stage 18 that raced from Cahors to Angouleme. We decided fight for a position close to the finish, so we could watch the race coverage on the Jumbo-tron and see what was visible the last 100 meters of the race.
In order to get this close, we had to hold our position for literally 5 hours. As the day went on people would show up and try to take our place. Some were very aggressive. It became an endurance test. I stopped drinking so I wouldn’t have to pee.
We were hoping for a sprint finish, but the peloton allowed a break to get a huge lead of non-gc riders, so we had to settle for another sprint of four riders for the finish. Sandy Casar, a Frenchman, smoked the group in the uphill sprint.
The T-Mobile rider is Axel Mercx, Michael Boogard is the Rabobank rider.
When it was apparent that the break was going to make it, the announcer queried the crowd on who they wanted to win by crowd applause. Obviously being a French crowd, Sandy Casar was the favorite. Interestingly, Axel Mercx received some boos. Not sure why. Maybe it was the non French speaking Belgium relationship with France, or the dominance of his father.
The rest of the peloton came in about 9 minutes later, and since there were some sprint points available, we were treated to another field sprint. It was a long uphill sprint, which Boonen won, but it also split the field into groups.
Stage 19 was a time trial from Cognac to Angouleme, and even through we were in Angouleme, we decided to skip it and get back into Paris for a day of recovery before the final, so we hoped on the TGV. Train travel in Europe is excellent. The speed trains shrink just about any destination in France into a 4 to 5 five hour window with comfortable seating, a bar car, and no hassle embarking and debarking. On our trip out from Paris we showed up 10 minutes before our departure and hopped right on the train.
Since we had a couple of successful stages under our belt, we didn’t feel the pressure to fight for a good position on the Champs-Elysees. So, we estimated when the racers should arrive in Paris and showed up. To our surprise, we had no problem finding a spot where we could see the finishing circuits coming and going. The race came together into Paris with Discovery at the front protecting Contador.
As usual, breaks were attempted, but they were brought back in the last lap for a field sprint.
After the race, we decided to check out the Eiffel tower, on our way there, we noticed some Spanish and Belgium press hangng around a hotel. As we walked by we saw a sign indicating the Discovery channel team was staying there.
We were surprised there wasn’t more of a crowd. The press was obviously waiting for something, so we hung around, and shortly a car pulled up and Johan Brunel got out and we decided to get his autograph.
Then, the team showed up…
Guy’s got a million dollar smile…
We thought after seeing three stages we could check seeing the Tour de France off our list of “things to do before you die”. How wrong we were, our desire to go back and see a mountain stage and experience this event has only grown…