The return of Le Tour - Gap

Hot on the heels of Le Tour again (sorry in advance the next couple are Tour de France blogs so if ur not interested consider this your advance warning) we headed inland to Gap – about a 200km drive. After frustrating trips on smaller free roads we relented and decided to pay for the toll roads.

Le Tour @ Gap for 2 DAYS!

Le Driver

Le navigator (sans Jim)



Everything was going smoothly until a call from Dad enquiring if we had made a $1300 purchase – turns out the card details had been used to pay an energy bill in the UK which had cleaned ou what we had left in the travel account. Luckily Dad was on the case and able to call the bank, have the card blocked and an emergency temporary one issued overseas phew.

So back to the Tour.

We arrived in Gap and visited the tourist info centre to get the course details. The riders were coming in from Paul Troix Chateaux, hitting the outskirts of Gap and then deviating away for a small mountain climb before finishing back in Gap.

Dave at the Gap finishing line - yes it was cold and rainy

We found the finish line easily, it was typically choccas so we walked down to about 500m to go and were easily able to get a barrier spot with great access to the caravans freebies (the caravan is like a parade that comes through before the race to entertain the people and give out free lollies, hats etc).

At around the 5km to go mark (the stage was 162.5km long) the French commentator started repeating the name Cadel Evans, L’stralie over and over, so we figured Cadel must be doing something good (plus some French people kept saying L’Stralie and giving us the thumbs up). Turns out Cadel, Sanchez and Contador had made a break from the peloton to make up about 1min on the yellow jersey.

The start of the Le Caravan - the yellow jersey of course!

Dave is his snazzy Carefour king of the mountain cap

Alberto Contador whizzes past

We got to see them come through quite closely about 5mins from the stage winner. It was quite odd because the pack were really split up and there were a bunch of little breakaway groups before the main peloton.

One of the breakaway groups

Lampre on cruise mode

After the race we squeezed our way back into Gap to meet up with Tom and Bec for their final dinner before returning back to Australia. We even had a special dessert prepared in the boys honour, with the waitress organising to write their names on the plate.

Dessert in honour of Le David (Toms said Le Cornu - which is actually his surname, Le Sandison just didnt have the same ring)

As the finish town Gap was where the ride was starting from the following day we decided to stick around to watch the start. The stage was set for a longer ride of 179.5km into the Alps and finishing in Pinorolo Italy.

Once again we visited the tourist info office to make sure we had the right starting location/street. Turned out it was the same street with the riders going in the revese direction to where they had ridden in to finish the day before.

We nailed an excellent position up on a stand set aside for wheelchairs telling the guy on the entrance we just wanted a photo and then we just thought we’d stay there until someone came to kick us out – which they didn’t YAY!

20th July - the start line in Gap

So we got a really great closeup view of all the starters, only thing was Cadel seems to be camera shy and we always seem to miss him. This time he was down the back talking to a Rabobank rider the whole time.

The riders hanging out before they ehad to the start line



Ok so Cadel is towards the right side of the middle of the photo behind the Omega Pharma Loto meer cat looking straight at the camera. He is in BMC uniform (red with black across chest and talking to a Rabobank guy (orange and blue)



The 4 jerseys at the start line

"I have a flag", "oh look that guy up there has a flag"
The very French start of the stage for the day...

Once they had left and the town returned to some normality, we made a stop at Maccas to use the Wifi to check the bank account transactions which seemed to be all legit – except for the gaping big hole where $1300 used to be. All goodand can be disputed by printing and faxing a form to the bank in Austrlia – easier said than done! A job for the coming days.

Once the admin work was done we hit the road for Briancon (pronounced Bree-An-Son). Along the way we passed a beautiful (man made) lake in the valley so we thought where better to have lunch. It was  here we met local windsurfer Claude (I just made up his name – not sure what it really was, but I thought Claude sounded French) who told us all about the local geology and meterology. He also told us how the locals hate Le Tour as all the roads get blocked and everyone leaves behind tonnes of litter – he was definitely a bit of a greeny.

Lac de Serre-Ponçon

More of the Lake - it was HUGE!

When we got to Briancon – a cute little ski town at the bottom of the Serre Chevilear wth wooden chalets. We pulley up at Cinque Valles (5 Valleys) Camping, which was really busy and turning people away. Luckily we had prebooked- although they couldn’t find our booking anywaythey let us stay. I did have an email booking confirmation just in case but didn’t need to use it.

We worked out  plan of attack for the next couple of days with me even translating French road closures – I am getting quite talented in the research department and my written French is improving (plus Google Translate helps :D)

Dave... drinking

Me working hard on French to English tranaslations, blogging etc

Sur le Pont d'Avignon

Ahhhhhh... Someone should change the name of Avignon to heaven. After a 2 ½ hour drive that was supposed to only take 1hour (thanks Jim) we arrived in the picturesque city of Avignon in Provence. We wasted no time in parking Mulder in a perfect spot overlooking the river Rhone right adjacent to le Pont d’Avignon- the camping ground strangely enough shared this name – Camping du Pont d’Avignon. Basically if the bridge still stood in its entirety we would be right under it!

Mulder's view

Once we had parked we ascertained that there were hot douches and toilet paper!!! BONUS!!! LUXURY!!!

After working out we were onto a good thing it was finally time to explore the city. We took a free shuttle ferry over from the Ile de la Barthelasse (Island where we were staying) back over to Avignon. Here we climbed the 100’s of steps up to the top of the rampart where we had a great view back over the Ile, Villeneuve le Avignon – the home of the Cardinals in the 14^th century and the distant Mont Ventoux.

 

Sur le Pont d'Avignon... lalala (thats as much of the song as I know

Right.....there is Mont Ventoux

After admiring the view we walked through the Roche des Doms (gardens) down to the Dalais de Paps – the Popes Palace – Home of the Papacy in the 14^th century – life’s tough for the Pope!

The Popes personal vineyard for making wine

Avignon's imposing Cathedral spire

After this we moved onto the Place de L-Horloge (Main square) and noticed an abundance of street performers. It was here we had discovered we had arrived smack in the middle of Marche du Festival – the Festival of Avignon for Performers in Art. Everyone was putting on demo shows and handing out flyers promoting the full shows for the evening (pity they were in French). I am really not sure where they managed to fit all of the productions because there were so many.

The posters afor all of the shows

We wandered the inner city some more and had our first European milkshake – I was hanging out for it even though it was 5.5Euro! Missing my Milk!

Dreaming of milkshakes.... mmmm Milkshake!

 We headed back to the campsite for some pre-dinner wine and cheese and a shower before heading down to the Rhone to jump aboard our dinner cruise boat at 8pm. It was filled with oldies but was still fun!

Moonlighting as the Federson's - French translation of Sandison?

Dinner on the cruise

The meal on the boat was quite delicious too. The cruise took us past the Pont St Benezet aka the Pont d’Avignon, back down past Avignon around the point of Ile de la Barthelasse and around the other side of the island past Villeneuve les Avignon. Here we got some semi-sunset views and by the time we arrive back at the dock at Avignon we could take night photos of the city and bridge.

We had many poses but i have selected this one as being suitable for the blog :)

Again appologies for the blurred photo - Night vision is not the camera's strong point
But this is the bridge at night - you may have had to have been there...

We missed out on getting the washing done – may have been due to the copious amounts of wine consumed, which turned out to be fortunate as a big storm came through overnight.

Montpellier - Le Tour again

Today it was back on the heels of Le Tour, the last chance for the sprinters to do their thing before the race headed into the Alpes.

We drove in as close as we could to the finish (Stade Yves du Manoir), getting to a supermarket carpark about 500m away.

Arivee Montpellier - Le Tour 2011

Next we decided to hike in and check out where everything was situated this stage of the race being a different format to the last one we had been to. It was fairly quiet as the day was quite grey and windy so we were easily able to get around and find a spot close to the future action. We sat for about 5mins or so deciding whether to stay put for the next 4hrs or to have a wander around. In the end wandering around won so we headed over to check out the merchandise stand 5m’s away. 5mins later we heard a loud crack and the log barricade we had been sitting on fell down with people falling on the ground everywhere. Unfortunately 1 lady had her foot trapped underneath with everyone else on top of it. When they finally got it off her it was really mangled and the bone was sticking out the top of the foot with a compound fracture. It was so lucky we had moved because that would have put a real dampener on our holiday. A few people fainted around her and we noticed later that more of the logs had collapsed – the police care factor was pretty minor. (sorry 'm a bad physio - no pics :( )

A riding tour group getting presented on the main stage

After that we continued looking at stalls and merchandise and decided to head back to the car to make some lunch before coming back to secure a position. Our spot turned out to be a great one, at about 75m to go. There we met another Aussie couple from Adelaide travelling a similar route to us over a similar timeframe. We exchanged details and then got down to the business of watching the race.

All ready in our spot

It was a 192.5 km stage starting in Limoux and arriving at Montpellier at around 5:15pm – earlier than the anticipated 5:30pm finish due to a strong tailwind. The stage was won by Mark Cavendish – the Manx as anticipated, with Cadel coming in with the peloton at around 29^th position, maintaining his 3^rd place in the overall classification 2’06” behind the leader.

Once all over we drove onto a new campground Le Floreal – still in Lattes, which was much nicer than the previous 2 nights AND had warm showers woohoo! We hung out at the bar and used the internet and finished the day with a homemade jambon (ham/pancetta stuff) and crumbed fried goats cheese salad YUMMO!

Sette & Montpellier - the highs and lows

We had our first real early start (if you count 9am as early) this morning – mainly because we had to check out of the campground by 9am.

On our way towards Montpellier in the Languedoc region of France we stopped off at the port town of Sete. Mum and Dad had been here last year and recommended it, and it was certainly a nice pitstop on the journey.

The beaches of Sete

Dave once again braved a swim, but i chickened out and only got in up to my ankles – the water here is far too cold for my liking (even Dave admitted it was chilly).

Brrrr.... I mean oh what a refreshing temperature

We indulged instead at the local patisserie and had a massive piece of flan au chocolat – or chocolate tart for those non-French speakers. It was delicious!

Yummm!

After a bit more of a walk around and watching the local lifeguards practice a rescue – the victim definitely would have drowned if they were on an Australian beach, it was back on the road to Montpellier.

Unfortunately Montpellier didn’t boast any camp grounds and so we were forced to stay about 7km away in the small village of Lattes. Even once we got to Lattes a lot of the campgrounds were full with families on summer holidays and most weren’t really geared up for tents and campervans but more for families staying in small cottages/cabins.

We were forced to accept our fate staying at the Spanish inspired  Camping le Camarguais in what could only be described as a carpark with an electricity post – bonus! At the time of writing this (12:30am) we were hanging out in the dark, backing onto the central swimming pool listening to a house remix of the Pirates of the Carribean theme song played on the loudest setting of the sound system + steroids! We went over to check on the party as it sounded promising but all we found were kids in the pool that apparently closed at 7pm with 4-5 guys drinking and smoking around the pool – the music is cranking but the party is lame L. Needless to say that we didn’t get much sleep at Camping le Camarguais!

Le shite.... Camping at Camping el Camaguais

Keeping ourselves amused with self tattoos

Once the music stopped we did manage to get some sleep but were then woken by the heat of the morning sun and forced out of bed early. Next the fun of Camping el Camarguais continued with a freezing cold shower (aptly named douche in French – these people were douches!) including some creative hair washing to ensure i didn’t freeze to death! I complained about the douches but apparently they were working well and in very good order... whatever...Douches!

On a more positive note we headed out of the shite campground to explore Montpellier. First stop was the tourist information centre to get a map – essential for any town.city sight seeing as well as some info on Le Tour which would be stopping by at Montpellier the next day. While we were there we also found some alternative campsites (unfortunately we had pre-paid 2 nights at Camping le Camarguais – ps if ur wondering why I am saying Camping le Camarguais so many times its because Google picks up on the amount of times a word/phrase is in a document and then when someone searches for it this blog will hopefully come up and scare them away, saving them a lot of pain and heartache!). ... Back to Montpellier... I also made some friends with 2 rather wet Frenchmen celebrating a friend’s bucks weekend – I am still not sure if they were wet from a beer shower or swimming in the local fountain. All I know is that I have beautiful eyes and Dave has beautiful Oakleys and together our children would be beautiful...



Opera Comedee

 

Next we went out in search of lunch. We found a cute little restaurant in Place de Notre Dame because the food looked and smelt great  we had to stop! Melon and Jambon salad, fish skewer with saffron rice ad areally yummy chocolate Sunday called a Dame Blanche – in case you ever want to try it.

Dave having a good ol' sniff

With our stomaches full it was back to sightseeing again. Frist stop was the Abbe Sainte Ursule – an old Abby (nunnery) turned women’s prison, turned dance museum – an interesting transition i’d say. Next we continued down the twists and turns of the old city coming to the centre –the Place des Martyrs de la Resistance.

The Palace of Justice

One of the windy streets of Montpellier - very cute

From here it was straight up the Rue Foch to the Palias de Justice and Arc de Triumphe (every French city needs one!). From here we crossed into the Place Royale du Peyrou to see the Aquaduct and central monument – aka cover for the gigantic watertank for the city on the hill top.

Le Arc d Triumphe - Montpellier's version

The watertank cover monument... I'm not sure what it is actually called or meant to be other than that...

The Roman Aquaduct

We slowly made our way back through the cute little streets with all of their shopping treasures and ended up back at the Place de la Comedie – site of the Opera Comedie near where we had started.

Shopping Montpellier style

In search of toilets we went into the Polygon which was a multilevel shopping centre only to find that to use the toilets you need a season pass. As there was no-one to pay we had to just hold on!

Lastly it was through the Antigone with its very Olympic vibe and back to Mulder to drive us back to the crappy campground – Camping le Camaguais. We decided to make use of the pool and hung out until 8PM (1 hour after close when they kicked us out) – at least we got some enjoyment from the place!

Carcassone - Welcome back to France and Happy Bastille Day!

Today we made our way back into France. Coincidently it was also Bastille day – The French National Day. We knew everywhere in France was going to be busy so we called ahead to a few campsites and found that one said yes, if we just rocked up around 2pm they would fit us in.

Mulder takes up position in the camping field

 We headed off with Jim leading us back to France. We arrived in the small town of Trebe outside of Carcassone. The campground à l'ombre des micocouliers, charged us a small fee to camp in their field/minigolf area along with a bunch of other people who arrived for the festivities. Modest accomodation facilities and our first Turkish toilet – I had warned Dave about these J (Basically for those not in the know a Turkish toilet is a squat toilet that you put your feet on designated places on either side of the hole. The toilet can have the tendancy to flush whenever it feels like it, inundating the footholes with water containinng whatever was in the toilet at the time of flushing – FUN).

A Turkish toilet for the un-initiated... UltraFUN

Once we had worked out where everything was we headed into Carcassone, we found a park on the outskirts of town and walked into Le Cite – the Old City. What we found was a spectacular Medieval  castle and village. After a 10min squishy trip inside the walls of the old city - we had heard this was bad in tourist season but were hardly prepared for what we experienced – I can’t believe people actually attempted to bring prams in with them!

The Outer wall and gate - PS this was the only entry/exit point for the whole place. Makes it easy to defend back in the day but makes it a nightmare for tourists now!

The dreaded cue- although cue would be a nice way to describe it. It was more of a mosh pit turned communal effort to get inside the gate!

We all squish our way into the streets


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Inner wall and grass area (where a second moat used to be once upon a time)



Inside the castle walls we checked out the village stalls, including sampling some glace (icecream) along the way. And visited the Basilica of Nazarius and Celcius – the Cathedral of the Cathars within the city. The cathedral was quite beautiful especially the stained glass windows, which i actually want meant to take photos of but swear I didnt see the sign until we were walking out.

The cathedral

One of the many stainglass windows - this was the Rose window Sud (south Rose window)

Hundreds of prayer candles lit in memory of the deaths during the French Revolution

We decided to stay in Carcassone for the 4 ½ hours until 10 :30pm when the Bastille Day fireworks were due to commence. We hung out near the river and were spoilt with a fantastuc firework display from the castle – a breathtaking backdrop.

The castle - WOW!

Reserving a spot for the fireworks

The crowds gathering around the river and Pont Neuf

2 hours later - more crowds

Wouldnt be very French of us if we weren't drinking wine

The castle at night - sorry about the photo, our camera takes crappy night pics

The fireworks



All in all a fairly spectacular day and evening – even the wine we shared in the park was pretty awesome !