Friday 16 May 2014

May 11 2014 Final Stage on The Tour de France

 We never broke any speed records but we did finish the 5198 km of The Tour de France unscathed. A few close calls with passing cars, opening doors and wild pigs. In fact it was on the last day of the tour when Yoly crashed into a car that flung its door open into the roadway. Yoly ended up in the drivers seat but happily no one was injured. The day before we ran into two wild pigs foraging in the forest but this time we were in better shape and on a downhill. The pigs did the same grunting and running but we just jumped on the pedals and sprinted away. 

While Yoly never doped to aid her performance I drank quite a few beers along the route. The last days were some of the most challenging. The weather didn't really cooperate and finding an acceptable route into Paris was dificult because the roads seemed to get exponentialy bigger and busier as we approached Paris. We picked Sunday for last ride in as we have found fewer cars on the roads, especially in the industrial areas, but it was still tough to pick an acceptable route. We were definitly tired when we got to our Hotel in Gonesse. 

Many people cheered us on especially on the rainy cold days. I remember our first day camping we ran into the first of many cycle tourists we met along the route. The guy was totally impressed with Yoly after she told him that we rode off of our current map and had to find another map to keep going. A guy was clapping and cheering for us just the other day as we rode into Fountainebleau. Made us feel like heroes.

 Yoly is glad to be no longer ruled by a GPS that takes us to unappealing roads and the phrase "but the gps says" or "the gps found a short cut" or "the gps shows there is a road here"
 
The day after our arrival in Gonesse, the sorting through our paniers and packing started. Our hotel is conveniently across from the Une Piece en Plus, the storage place we rented for a year. We managed to scrub our bikes clean to make sure no soil, slug guts, bugs, seeds and other organic matter was left on them for the trip back to Canada. Then the bikes were ready to be packed in their luggage and put back in storage. 

We caught up with our friend Sarah from french school in Aix en Provence and her friend Tricia in Paris. We had a great visit over lunch exchanging wonderful stories and adventures in one of the recomended brasseries in the area (Le Comptoir Relay St Georges) on carrefour odeon. 
Later that afternoon we learned that one can book tickets three months in advance on line to climb the Eifel tower. We did it the hard way. We sood in line for about an hour to get the tickets, then stood in line to get to the first floor by elevator, walked around, then stood in line to continued to the top by another elevator. Finnally after the tour we stood in line to get down. Bravo for Allan who put up with the line ups! I am proud of him.


Long walk and picnic in Fountainbleau.




Aproaching  Paris on the only 2km bike path and conquering the wind. 


Here comes the rain again in frint of our hotel.


Drying, sorting and starting to pack.


We felt bad when the lady from reception came to our room to show us how to operate the coffee machine and gave us coffee. I tried to say "it's not what it looks like"


As it turned out you are not allowded to have a garage sale in you hotel room. 


Cleaning and scrubbing the bikes.


The storage box.




A little break in Paris, a view from the Opera House.


Inside the opera house.


Inside the opera house.


Practising selfies.

Top floor of the opera house.


Opera house.


Disappointingly, no photos were allowed in the actual theatre.



Costumes




Beautiful dress


Place Vendom


I like beads, I see them everywhere.


Another selfy


Lost in Paris but no worries we have three maps, three navigators and a GPS enabled smart phone.


We made it to the restauraunt and are having a great visit with Sarah, sitting on Yoly's right, and her friend Tricia in Paris. 


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