We head out down to the Centrale Ville, town centre, and wander the now barricaded streets to get a good spot to watch the race. There's more people around than yesterday and the evening before. We get chatting to a lovely old French couple, well mainly the man who speaks very good English, who in turn translates to his wife. Again we're reminded about how lucky we are to be able to travel this far away for so long, as they ask us about our trip, and are surprised at how long it is. It's nice to chat to them and feel their excitement for the tour coming through their town. He tells me it's the first time it's passed through in his living memory. Great to see the excitement it's generated. Meanwhile sim gets chatting to a couple of English retirees and of course the Brexit comes up. They were remain voters and were very sad about the situation.
Every man and his dog from the town is here.
After a good hour of build up, waiting with our paper Manche/Normandy flags ready, the entourage of support vehicles and sponsor caravans starts to come through the town. What a spectacle. It was a very festive atmosphere as they paraded through the now crowded streets lined with colourful onlookers. Each caravan was a sponsor of the race and were throwing lots of free stuff out from the vehicles. Hats, bags, pens, lollies, shirts, you name it. Luckily we scored a Skoda hat and some other junk. In all the craziness I got smacked in the head by a flying bag of Haribu gummy bears from one truck. Got me right between the eyes. Worst part was that they rebounded onto the road and the next truck ran them over. It was nice to see that most people got something however. The kids if the town loved it. Such a great spectacle that alone, the pumping music and the bizarre and weird nature of each Caravan. After a good half hour of vans and trucks coming through giving away free stuff and pumping up the crowd, we said aurevoir to our French friends and ciao to the Brits (not sure why ciao but that's what we said) and headed to the markets in the centre square. Sim, in need of a new pen for her journal entries as her one was dying, headed to the BIC van, obviously sponsors of the tour, where they were giving away prizes for everyone who spun the wheel. Unfortunately she didn't land on a pen and neither did I, we ended up with a pencil and key ring. Damn!
We got some salad baguettes for lunch and then sought a good vantage point for the race proper. We spotted an Australian flag hanging from the awning of a pub and setup across from them. Was a good spot to watch from as the large temporary big screen in town was just setup nearby on the bend so we could watch the riders come in. An hour and half after the vans came through the breakaway group turned onto rue Lecampion where we were waiting in anticipation and headed quickly towards us. The crowd rose to noise levels that I wasn't anticipating as they went by. In the blink of an eye they came and went and turned at the bend near us and out of sight.
A few minutes later the main peleton came rushing through and the noisy crowd found its voice again. So exciting to watch. Such a frenzy of colours and noise as the the different riders from all the different teams whizzed by. I must admit it's hard to spot the riders individually, it's all a bit of a blur. But what a fun and exciting occassion to experience, the first stage of the Tour de France. Loved it!
Once the riders and team cars passed the crowd dissipated and went back to their normal Saturday lives seemingly. We strolled back into the town centre and up past the train station to see if we could rent a car. After a good 20minute walk into suburban Granville we reached the service station where the europecar was. We asked the lady, parlez vous anglais? No, she replied. I immediately knew this was gonna be tricky. It was. But after finally figuring out when and what we wanted to hire, we got the keys and sim headed out onto the French streets. She was a little anxious and rightfully so, driving left hand drive, manual transmission and for the first time for her on the wrong side of the road. We turned into some quiet back streets initially so she could acclimatise and after a few minutes she was like a duck to water. Very proud of her.
The weather was now a clear blue sky afternoon and we decided to capitalise on it by going for a drive in the French countryside. We ventured about 25km north to the town of Coutances. Another small town but with one huge church and another slightly smaller church too. European towns have such big churches. We stop for a drink in a bar and wander the town streets for a bit. It too has Tour fever, as the race will come through here tomorrow. We spot another Aussie flag hanging from a second floor balcony above a bar, (us Aussies really are everywhere, and we seem to hang out near bars) before heading back in our little Renault to Granville.
We get a park near the church in the old town and head back to the flat, before heading out for dinner. We again hit the port side street restaurants, this time going to a little place called La Citadelle. The food was ok, a little bit fancy for fancy sake I thought. Would've just preferred a nice and simply cooked piece of fish. Instead it was a little bit like a Masterchef invention test.
After dinner we headed up to the little bar where we picked up the keys from the other night. Again this place was busy. Seems to be the place to be! We get a seat at the bar, order a beer and cider, and settle in to watch the Germany v Italy football match on the tv. After a few beers and sim switching to rosé, as the cider here has a strong fermented taste, we head back to the flat for the football extra time and penalty shoot out, as we have to also do a bit of laundry.
mat + sim
No comments:
Post a Comment