Starting to plan our trip for next July and my husband is a bicycle fanatic and would love to see some of the Tour, especially the final day in Paris.
Any ideas from others? Should we do one of the tours? Should we do one of the Paris final race packages?
Any ideas are greatly appreciated!!!
|||
If you search on %26#39;tour de france%26#39; in the search box, you%26#39;lll find some previous experiences of watching the final day in Paris. If you%26#39;re hoping to see several days around the country, then an organised tour is probably far more straightforward, as someone else has to deal with road closures, heavily booked hotels, etc. It%26#39;s a popular event!
|||
We saw the Tour in 2006 and lots of people followed it in camper vans. There was a whole community of them.
In some cases, they reconnaitred (forgive my spelling!!) places a couple of days in advance, bagged their spot and basically enjoyed the sun and read their books by the side of the road, until the race came, and then off they went.
I didn%26#39;t understand how much fun it was until I saw it - now even the kids (and stranger than strange the TEENAGER - shock!!) are fans. They are determined to get to Brittany for next year%26#39;s one.
|||
It%26#39;s a thrilling event to witness at least once, so I hope you get the chance. A couple of thins to consider:
1. If you%26#39;re thinking of staying in or near the start of finish town of a particular stage, try to get a reservation NOW. The Le Tour %26#39;08 was just announced recently, so most hotels will already be booked (except for Paris which is a different situation because it so big.
2. It%26#39;s very easy to see the tour if you%26#39;re near a flat section of the route at any spot in the road. But the peloton will go by so fast that you won%26#39;t really see much and won%26#39;t make out individual riders. But it would still be fun watching all the preliminariy circus (the caravan and team vehicles) go by for an hour before the racers arrive. And you can drink wine and chat with your roadside neighbors. So that will be fun without taking too much of your time. But I would find a hilltop or mountainside to watch, if that%26#39;s possible. But you will have to take the whole day, maybe more.
3. If you want to be very close to a finish line of the day%26#39;s stage you will have to get there probably early in the morning to see a race that will finish at 1700h. I was in Valkenburg, The Netherlands, to see a stage finish on a famouns steep hill into the town. I got there 4 hours ahead of the race arrival, and couldn%26#39;t get within 800 meters of the finish area. But I was halfway up the climb, so that was still a thrill.
|||
Thank you all for your help and ideas! I%26#39;ll let you know what we end up doing.
|||
I hope it works out. If you want to see the stage information for next year%26#39;s tour, you can try this link-
velonews.com/race/int/articles/13572.0.html
If you click on the map, it will enlarge so you can get a sense of the 2008 route at a glance
|||
The tour%26#39;s own website is also in English http://www.letour.fr/indexus.html
We%26#39;ve been to various stages in different years and ALL of them involved a whole day, mainly because of road closures, so you have to be in place several hours beforehand and need to allow plenty of time to get away afterwards - we stayed near Luz Ardiden one year and the roads were still gridlocked during the evening.
We found best views of the riders were actually at the prologue (time trial), as you could identify them individually, most impressive was the mountain climb (though they still come past much faster than you imagine is possible), while the finish in Paris was great for atmosphere - there were also some big screens in Paris so we could follow the race before it arrived.
You don%26#39;t need a package if you want to stand on the Champs Elysées - wander along and choose your place, though again you need to get there HOURS before if you want to be on the front. I seem to remember they sell periscopes for late-comers!
|||
As Diz says one of the time trials is worth seeing as you will actually see the individual riders.
|||
I have seen about 4 or 5 finishes, and I always plant myself around the Rue de Rivoli opposite the Tuileries gardens. They make 10 loops here, so you see them over and over. And at first they don%26#39;t go very fast. I remember seeing Lance Armstrong%26#39;s first win there, and at one point he was riding no-handed, having a drink and talking to the guy next to him. After a few loops they start to go faster.
Les
|||
-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-
This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.
To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html
We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.
Removed on: 5:20 pm, September 13, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment