The Tour de France

Carlos and I are both Tour de France followers and when we found out that the Tour was coming to Pau this year we knew we couldn't miss it. So, on Monday the 16th, we got together with Carlos's mom, our sister-in-law, and our niece and nephew, and drove to a spot about 3.4km before the finish line.

Amazingly, she slept through a lot of the honking and cheering

Awake and playing with her toys

Though the riders weren't due to arrive until around 5pm, we went there much earlier. As part of the Tour, there is a "caravan" starting about an hour and a half before the cyclists go through, and in it each of the sponsors of the Tour has a few cars that give out free stuff to the crowd. Since we had two young kids with us (7 and 6) we couldn't possibly miss the caravan. It was pretty fun to watch the special cars go by, and the kids were beside themselves with joy at all the cool things they caught. At first, though, people were nuts when the cars went by. A few teenage boys next to us kept running in front of the kids and grabbing things that had fallen at their feet... very rude. Fortunately, a lot of the next cars went slow enough to see that we had little kids, and threw more items in our direction.

Some of the photos of the caravan:

Very cool decor on some of the vehicles! This one is for the store that sponsors the 'Best Climber' jersey.

Wearing my "Best Climber" hat

                                             

Aimy had a "Best Climber" hat too!

Just after 5, the escape group flew past us. There were two that had gotten a bit ahead and they ended up sprinting for the finish, with a Frenchman coming out on top. The second group had one of my favourite cyclists in it, Thomas Voeckler, but they were going so fast that Carlos was unable to get a picture. But when the peloton came by 10 minutes later, Carlos snapped a great one of the yellow jersey going past.

Here they come!

And there they go!

The peloton, with the yellow jersey in the middle.

They really sped by!

The racers were going so fast we barely had time to register that they were right in front of us before they were gone again. Carlos didn't see the yellow jersey at all and I missed the best climber and best sprinters. But we still had a great time! Next time we go, though, I'd love to see a mountain stage and really be able to see the racers up close... maybe next year.