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2011 Europe

15-21 July 2011: Week Three le Tour de France

Friday 15 July 2011 : Saint-Gaudens  -> Albies (Tour de France, Stage 13)

 

 

 

 

 

We will miss the Tour today; they are going from Pau to Lourdes (152.5 km) because we have figured we need to be at least a day ahead to get a half decent spot on the mountains, so we’ll try to get a spot to watch Saturday’s stage 14.

The hotel car park was relatively quiet overnight, but we were awoken early by the local council workers starting their pre-Tour cleaning; leaf-blowers are internationally noisy!  We had our breakfast then headed out of town, following the Tour yellow arrows along the route the riders will take.  Just out of Saint-Gaudens, we came across the two vans and their drivers who placed the arrows along the route.  They leap-frogged their way along the roads placing a directional arrow wherever they needed to, then jumped back in their vans a drove at break-neck speed until stopping abruptly at an intersection, junction or roundabout to place another arrow.  It was great for us; we could confirm we were going in the right direction as the Tom-Tom maps of the smaller country backroads can be flaky at times.

At one point, we overtook both of the arrow-placing vans so were again reliant on the Tom-Tom to keep us on track; we ended back behind the vans when we stopped in a small village to buy a baguette.  Eventually, we overtook the vans again when they had stopped in a village at the foot of the Col d’Agnes for lunch at the pub, parking on the footpath right outside after placing an arrow on the streetsign. We started up the mountain, passing hundreds of motorhomes and campers who have entrenched themselves, ready for the tour.  The good sites have all been taken, so it’s a task to try and find a level (enough) spot large enough for a motorhome that none of the thousands of other parking-spot-hunters have seen.  We were quite near the summit of the Col when we spied a small barely suitable spot.  We surveyed the area (remembering the last time we parked off the road and got bogged in a field) and thought it suitable enough, it wasn’t going to be level and we wouldn’t be able to use the main door as you’d end up stepping down off the cliff, but as we would try to escape again as soon as the Tour passed, it would only be for one night.  Scott gingerly drove off the road onto the narrow verge covered with long green grass.  As soon as the front right wheel was off the road surface it had zero traction on the grass and again, we got stuck.  Any stuff ups in getting the van off the verge could end up seeing the van tumble over the edge of the mountain.  After several different attempts at getting back onto the road, a few Tour spectators tried to assist by pushing the 3500kg van; eventually a bloke came down from the make-shift bar on the next bend in his Fiat Panda.  With a frayed-rope between the Panda and the van, a few people pushing, and some smoking tires we were back onto the hard road surface. A check of the front right tyre shows it to be in even worse condition now, so it will have to be changed very soon.

We couldn’t get into that spot on the Col d’Agnes so decided to try further on.  As we were driving, we came to the decision that any decent places on the next mountain (Plateau de Bielle) would already be taken so we’ll try for somewhere from where we can easily escape to the next stage after the Tour passes; we headed into Les Cabannes at the foot of the Plateau.

There were a few motorhomes already in established positions in town; the Aires de Camping was already overflowing.  We used their facilities to empty wastes and headed just out of town to a small village, Albies, where there was a municipal campsite with a couple of spaces left.  We could have roughed it in a car park, but thought after the hectic day it would be nicer to have a proper pitch, hot showers and electricity.

After dinner, Scott was scouring the Tom-Tom maps to try and find what might be a suitable vantage from where to watch the Tour and discovered that we could have accidentally tripped over the right spot to be!  On the map there are four possible junctions of the main N20 road and smaller roads all labelled D522 (or D522A) on which the Tour will ride; one will have the Tour coming within 50m our campsite. 

Saturday 16 July 2011: Albies -> Montpellier (Tour de France, Stage 14)

Today is the last day in the Pyrenees; 168.5km from Saint-Gaudens to Plateau de Beille.

Scott had a terrible night sleep, listening to two sets of church bells chiming out the time every hour and half hour; Tracy didn’t notice them at all!  Having yet another look at the Tom-Tom maps and trying to reconcile them with the tour maps, we decided the D522 road nearest us was not going to be the one used by the Tour, so we decided to move to try to get a vantage spot closer to one of the other three D522 junctions on the map.  After breakfast and a shower (the municipal showers were hot although still push button) we headed along the main N20 road; there were campers and motorhomes scattered everywhere and we are convinced that some of them are in the wrong spot to be able to see the tour.  It took a couple of laps up and down a 10km stretch of road, but eventually we found a spot at the turn off onto what we think is the right D522 road; there are enough campers and Gendarme here to add credence, but still no yellow Tour arrows (unless they have all been souvenired already).

We walked the couple of km into town, through a local village which had an impressive aquaculture system growing trout, using the water from the adjacent fast flowing river.  The town was starting to heave under the Tour, with queues forming outside the local markets to purchase bread and cheese; stalls were setup selling everything from “official” Tour merchandise (not!) to straw hats.  The couple of beer tents already had many customers and the food vendor’s trade was constant, the Tour comes through here in about 6 hours.  There was a long line of cyclists trying to navigate the barricades to get onto the start of the hill climb, impeded by idiot drivers (all official Tour cars, of course) and the hundreds (if not thousands?) of spectators who were starting their trudge up the hill too.  Tracy managed to get into a shop and bought a baguette, cheese and ham, so we walked back to the motorhome on the side of the main road to await the arrival of the Tour later in the afternoon.

Parked ahead of us on the roadside was a group of four Belgian men, who had started their days drinking with some brekky wine and local ouzo-like spirits.  By lunchtime they had moved on to white wine, followed by the rosé, and then chased that down with some reds.  By the time the Caravane came through, they were onto the champagne.  Needless to say, they were quite pissed and became more and more friendly the more they drank; unfortunately their very limited English got worse until it became completely indecipherable. All four were beside the roadside to watch the Caravane and offered some of their free-junk to us (but we didn’t want it either, so it was yet another source of amusement for their pissed states to figure out!)  By the time the race actually came through, only the younger two guys were standing, the other two were nowhere to be seen!

The Peleton came passed trying to chase down a breakaway. 

 

Our first views of the Alpes
Our first views of the Alpes

 

 

We shouted and cheered for Cadel and he just happened to be finishing his water bottle and threw it towards us.  The biden hit the Armco barrier and bounced back onto the road; the other cyclists managed to avoid it but it was clipped by one of the team cars and then finally another which caused some minor damage to the very base, but we managed to collect it.  We were quite chuffed to finally get a genuine-Cadel-product from the Tour.

You can just see the water bottle - it's ours
You can just see the water bottle

As soon as we could, we got moving towards Montpellier.  We got onto the road from our parking spot quite easily but within a few minutes we stopped in a long line of traffic trying to do exactly the same thing.  Eventually we got moving at a steady rate and then onto the motorway.  The drive was easy enough, if a little dull.  Eventually we made it into Montpellier, taking a diversion from the Tom-Tom directions to follow the same route the riders will take into town (fortunately the Tour arrows had already been placed so it was quite easy to navigate around).  We ended up parking with a few other motorhomes and cars in the Carrefour carpark just a few hundred metres after the finish line.  When we arrived, we had a chat with a Belgian couple who had driven all the way from their home to see this stage and had tried to find last-minute hotel accommodation, of which there was none because the Tour had everything booked solid; they spent the night sleeping in the back of their Caddy wagon. They were a few seedy looking (homeless?) characters in the carpark, drinking and smoking dope, so we were a little wary of them, but as it got dark a beat-up van came by and they all piled in and drove off; we slept more easily knowing they were gone. 

Sunday 17 July 2011 : Montpellier -> Gap (Tour de France, Stage 15)

The Tour has finished in the mountains for the mean time, today going from Limoux to Montpellier (192.5km)

We had a reasonable sleep, only awoken occasionally by loud music blaring from cars visiting the 24hour McDonalds across the road from our parking spot. The previous night, the Belgian couple said they didn’t think the Carrefour would be open as it was Sunday, so we were pleasantly surprised to see people walking in and out of the shops, buying groceries.  Scott popped in and grabbed some fresh bread (still warm, mmmmmm) and some other bits and pieces for breakfast.  We were bemused by the fact the Carrefore was selling wine today (Sunday) but was prohibiting the sale of beer and spirits?  Was it a Sunday thing?  Or, a Tour thing?

Scott went for a run to stretch his legs and see what was going on up at the finishing area.  The place was already starting to come together; the shops and stalls were already established and the grandstands erected etc.  The only difference today from other days we had seen was, it was comparatively very quiet.  Scott followed the Tour route in reverse from the finish line and noticed some finishing touches were still being applied by the Tour machine, including the distance to go banners; he was intending to turn around after 5km but they hadn’t erected that banner by the time he went passed, then got lost in a circus of roundabouts, especially since the gusty wind had spun some of the Tour arrows around on the poles and some of the roundabouts were to be ridden by the Tour in the opposite direction to normal traffic.  Eventually he decided he must have been at least the desired distance and had to get un-lost on the way back through the roundabouts.  Eventually he came across the team erecting the 5km to the finish banners and was happy to be back on the track, running back to the finish, the motorhome and a hot shower.

At about 11:00 we wandered up to the finish area to establish our position.  We wandered around looking for a site to be able to see the big screen and the course itself.  Eventually we got our spot on the opposite side of the course, at the 150m to the finish, and waited.  Next to us was a Dutch family, with three kids who spent the entire afternoon screaming at the free product distributors and collecting vast quantities of the giveaway crap; they had a system and it worked well for them.  Next to them was a French man, who was just as greedy and snatched at the stuff as it was being handed out, pushing kids and women out of the way in the process to collect his bounty.  Sad.

We watched the race on the big screen, with no audio, just the background din of the French language from the local commentary at the finish line.  The spruiker was good; he could talk for minutes without taking a breath!  Of course, we had no idea what he was talking about, unless like the France 2/3 commentary team he said, “Mark Cavendish”; the only name we recognise and it is said very frequently, they love him here! Finally the Caravane and then Peleton, led by HTC who performed yet another sprint finish master-class to project Cavendish over the line in first place (again!).  It was curious to watch the remainder of the riders as the rolled over the line some minutes after the race had been won, and then look back to see the results on the big screen as they passed; the HTC guys were of course ecstatic their team-mate had won another stage, many of the other riders just nodded or sighed as they saw the results.

Cavendish wins again
Cavendish wins again

Once we decided to head back to the motorhome, we had to climb over the barriers to get back to the right side of the course and then fight our way through the crowds milling around the team buses hoping to catch a glimpse of the riders.  Some of the buses had already collected their riders and were trying to make their way to their next destination, so it we jumped in behind the Astana bus and made it through the masses with relative ease.  Unfortunately, when we got in the motorhome and onto the roads, we were not so lucky and spent a long while crawling around the outskirts of Montpellier and the motorway.   Eventually, the traffic thinned out, sped up and we were on our way to Gap.

The motorways were again pretty dull drives, until the sun went down and we got to see some of the lower-Alpine villages lit up.  There was a series of cliffs near (some town) which made the lighting of the trees along Kings Park (in Perth) look completely amateurish and pathetic.  The citadel at Sisteron was well lit and looked spectacular, pity we couldn’t stop and take photos from the edge of the motorway.  Finally we made it to Gap and drove through the town looking for a motorhome service point.  Like we have come to expect, signage in France is terrible and we spent a long while driving through some very narrow streets until we eventually found the right place.  There were quite a few motorhomes parked near the service point, so we decided we would stay the night here and move again the next morning.  We looked at the service point, trying to figure out how this model worked as we needed to ditch wastes and top up our fresh water; we gave up, deciding to have another look in the morning.  We had a late supper, then slept. 

Monday 18 July 2011 : in Gap (Tour de France, Rest Day)

The Tour has a rest today.

When we woke up, some of the motorhome which were near us when we went to bed had left, to be replaced with others and more.  Over a coffee, we watched as other people became just as confused as we were at how to operate the service point; everyone simply gave up and wandered off!

After brekky we went for a walk into the town to find the TIC.  Again, the signage let us down and we walked for quite a while, trying to re-navigate some of the narrow lanes and roads to find the TIC we had seen the night before.  We were just about to give up and turn back towards the parking spot when we finally spied the TIC.  They gave us a map of the town and pointed out where we could park our camping car.  The first place the TIC guy pointed out on the map was the place where were actually parked; and had to be vacated by 12:00 that day.  He didn’t know that, so pointed out another spot on the other side of town. We got back to the motorhome and armed with our TIC map started our drive to the other side of town.  Driving along one of the more main roads in the peak hour traffic, Scott pulled the motorhome to the very side of the road to allow an ambulance travelling in the opposite direction through.  It was a tight squeeze to have cars three-wide on the road, but the ambulance got through.  As soon as we went to get moving, there was a resounding crash from the side of the road; the awning had clipped one of the overhanging trees and had been ripped off the side of the van!  Bugger.  We couldn’t move anywhere until we collected the debris and secured the extension arms; we had blocked one of the lanes so all the traffic had to gingerly get around us as the ambulance had to do.  We weren’t popular with the rush hour traffic.  After a while, we managed to fix things enough to be able to get off the roadway.  We headed to the second site as indicated on our map by the TIC guy.  When we got there, there was a large empty parking area.  We thought we finally had some good luck, but no, our run of bad luck continued as we discovered this parking site had been completely reserved for the Tour official cars etc.  Bugger again.

We drove around the edge of Gap to find two commercial camping areas to see if they had any spaces, they didn’t.  We kept driving out of Gap and started following the route the riders will take up Col de Manse.  Just near the summit we saw a pub and some campers; perfect.  Somewhere to park, and somewhere to drown some sorrows. We parked on a side road and said g’day to our neighbours, Claire and Ben from Adelaide.  We had some more cleaning up to do from the awning fiasco, then Scott went for a run, before we walked up to the pub for a few late afternoon drinks, later joined by Ben and Claire.  It was cool during the day with a chilly breeze, as soon as the sun went behind the hills and the shadow of the pub was cast across the tables it started to get cold.  We decided to share a bbq and a few more drinks with Ben and Claire; their charcoal bbq and our attempts to get dinner cooked was a source of amusement, but eventually we ate enough to call dinner finished.  By now the sun was down and it positively freezing, so we moved inside Vinny to watch some tv whilst having a few more drinks and post-dinner nibbles.  The night drew to a close at about 22:30, having started badly but finishing on a better note.

Tuesday 19 July 2011 : Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux -> Gap (Tour de France, Stage 16)

This stage of the tour is 163km.  It was a cold night and in the morning it was raining with occasional thunder and lightning. We spent the morning in the motorhome catching up on some reading and other odds and sods to while away the hours until the Tour comes through at about 17:00 or so.  After the clouds cleared we found there was snow on the mountains which is spectacular. 

Snow on the mountains - summer!
Snow on the mountains - summer!

 

We are still perched on the Col du Mance and scored quite well when the caravan visited with the usual assortment of crap and more crap.  We met a lot of other Aussies all there cheering for Cadel, we wonder if he knows or realises we are cheering him on.  Eventually the riders made it over the top of the mountain and we got a great view as they levelled off and road off back into Gap. 

Go Cadel
Go Cadel

 

We headed back to Ben and Claire’s campervan as they have satellite and watched the remainder of the race before packing up and heading on out.

We are now heading straight to Alpe-d’Huez and missing the next two stages to secure a spot either on the mountain or within walking distance.  The drive isn’t too bad except for the traffic which slowly wends it way towards the Alps.  We arrive at Bourg d’Oisans at night and find a spot in the local Casino Supermarket near the Camping-Car Service Point and meet Daniel and Michael, who although are English both lived in Perth for a while. 

We take the opportunity for the next two days to chill out, do some walking and see where on Alpe d’Huez we want to stand and to get some shopping and restocking of the campervan done.  The town is packed and there isn’t much space to move.  There is plenty of things to do in the town, but seems everyone is here to ride up and therefore down the mountain and I have never seen such a huge grouping of lycra clad people (some of them should not be in lycra either).  I would also hate to calculate the amount of money there is in bikes, some of them seem more up to date than what the riders in the Tour are using.  We are also following the tour on TV to keep up to date with what is happening and also spend an afternoon in the pub watching it there over a few drinks.  Cadel was severely let down when nobody would help him at all and he subsequently ensured that Voekler continued with the yellow jersey – hope he gets a huge thank you and also has some power over who in his team actually gets a pay cheque, as from what we have seen they have certainly never supported him.

On the night before the race we get moved on from the supermarket car park and move up the street to a roadside verge which is at least quieter.