Tour De France: Stage 19 and 20

Sorry for my absence and just scheduled blog posts for the past few weeks but due to storms our internet at our holiday cottage was down for 10 days, I’m back now and back in the UK on Sunday.

So this year I was lucky enough to be able to go to see two stages of the Tour de France, even though I had to miss seeing it with all my family in Yorkshire. We have all followed cycling for years and it was our first opportunity to go and despite lacking names like Froome, Cavendish and Contador it was still an amazing experience.

Stage 19: Maubourguet Pays Du Val d’Adour/Bergerac

We had chosen to aim for Monbazillac, and we arrived at the small town at lunch time, pulling into a temporary car park where moments later it decided to piss it down with rain. So we ate lunch in the car and waited for this to stop, by this time a huge river had formed at the bottom end of the car park but with not many signs of clearing up we went to explore the town. Its amazing the effort that  goes into all the decoration of towns on the tour de france route its amazing.

It cleared up and we went for a wonder round the roads around the vineyard and its such a beautiful landspace, eventually we looped round and walked up the hill on the race route. We found a stand that was giving out hats and t-shirts for free (yellow obviously) grabbing each some for ourselves and a few for friends back home. Not the most fetching look but with everyone wearing them we felt like part of something special (by the time the cyclists came through it was pissing it down and everyone was in their coats anyway. We stopped near the top of the hill and had a beautiful view of the vineyards and the race.

Some how Brits always managed to end up next to each other at these things but it was nice to have other people to talk to. Then the caravans came, my dad stood on the road and me and my mum stood on the bank to try and catch freebies. To be fair we didn’t do too bad, haribo; fruitshoots and loads of other bits and peices the caravans are definatley worth catching.

It was another two hours before the riders came through and buy then the heavens had broken. . . .

It didn’t matter it was raining it was exciting seeing the race live, and getting really excited when I’d stopped which one Geraint Thomas, Team Sky, was. It was all over in two minutes after standing in the rain for hours and I’d definitely go again. That night we went back to our cottage and watched the highlights even stopping ourselves on TV.

Stage 20: Time Trial

So the day after we drove to another town to watch the time trial, settling down to watch the racers come by in reverse order at approximately 3 mintue intervals. This works really well at seeing racers although it feels less exciting but you know who you’ve seen and it was the penultimate stage. There isn’t much to say about it so I’ll add some pictures.

Anyway its late at night, I’m tired and this is a little bit rushed but I hope you like it. Do you like the Tour de France? Have you ever been to a stage.

Love

Gwenllian Branwen

xox