Tour de France Inspiration

Our view from the couch today. 

Usually, the Tour de France begins in the heat of summer with the riders attacking the roads of France in July. This year though, the Tour was delayed until today and will run through September 20th. 

Two years ago, we tried to watch a stage of the tour in Carcassonne but failed after our B&B had bedbugs. 

A few days later, we got to watch a stage of the Tour as it came through the mountains near our home in Quillan.

Last  year, we were in the States for the summer so we enjoyed watching the TV coverage early in the mornings and commenting on places that we had visited. 

We've watched the Tour for years, enthralled by the beauty of the country that became our home. Every year we get caught up in the drama, rooting for bicyclists that we had never heard of before and suddenly we're invested in them. 

Often we end up making spontaneous decisions while caught up in the Tour, like a bike trip through Provence 19 years ago. And already, as the first stage is blurring past us on the television, we hastily booked a hotel in Paris for the end of the Tour.

For years we have wanted to be standing on the Champs-Élysées watching the cyclists whiz past on the last day of the race and then to see the winner receive his yellow winner's jersey. 

This seemed like the perfect opportunity. There aren't many tourists in Paris. The number of tourists in France always goes down in September, but now, with Covid-19, Americans and Asians are banned. Brits are facing a two-week quarantine when they return home so they aren't here. The crowds should definitely be smaller along the Champs-Élysées.  

Also, the race is in September instead of July, so the sun shouldn't be too piercing as we stand along the road for hours. 

We will have to be careful, of course, and wear a mask. But I'm picturing wandering through the Musee d'Orsay without crowds or taking an early morning run in Jardins du Luxembourg without hordes of people. 

My heart rate increases just imagining walking the streets of Paris again. I love it every time.

 I'm happy to take you all along with me. 

Dreaming of France -- The Tour

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Every year, we look forward to watching The Tour de France. It's our July trip to France without fighting through all the tourists.
The first week of the tour was a little disappointing.
The start was scenic with Mont St. Michel in the background, but the bicyclists ended up clogged at the starting line, as no one had figured out how to get all the riders into that little circle in front of Mont St. Michel so that they could begin the race.

The stages were fairly flat and the riders chose to ride incredibly slow for at least two of the days. The endings have been close because the sprinters competed, but four hours of bicycling on TV leading to about a 30-second sprint can be disappointing.

Friday, the pace picked up and Saturday, the riders arrived in the Pyrenees, where you know the action will increase. Just the vertigo of spinning down the mountains with the riders excites me, not to mention the beauty of the ragged green mountains, the green pools formed by melting snows, and the patches of snow that remain.

The people watching the Tour are crazy too. I tell my husband that next  year I'll get him a Speedo bikini suit to wear while watching the tour alongside the route. People dress up in costumes. They wear crazy wigs and wave giant flags.
On Saturday, a costumed man ran alongside the riders as they struggled to climb a mountain. Chris Froome, the winner of last year's tour and the favorite for this year, reached out with his fist and clocked the guy in the side of the head. I can't blame him. The fans are a bit crazy. They need to give the riders room to ride.
This year, on July 12, the route goes through the area where we plan to move next year -- Languedoc.

 We'll be eagerly anticipating the release of next year's map to see which part of the country we can travel to and see the tour ourselves -- with or without a Speedo.

I'm also linking to Paris in July. Hope you'll play along with both Dreaming of France and Paris in July. We can't have too much France love, right?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and a link to your blog on Mr. Linky below. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.