Laowai

Going to The Tour de France was always something we dreamed about when we decided to move to Europe. But then after went to the Tour of Switzerland a couple times we just hadn’t thought about going to The Tour de France lately. Until yesterday morning when Brian was catching up on tour news and since it was passing into Switzerland said “why don’t we go today”. It’s amazing that we can decide on a whim to to go to The Tour de France. We decided to go to the finishing town called Porrentruy. It took a few hours by train. We got back well after bedtime for Bea and Claire, but it was worth it. 

Starting out on the train. We believe in loading our children with treats and more treats when we travel. It just makes everyone happier. Ha.

There is a parade of sponsors before the riders come into town – it’s called the caravan. They throw lots of loot and candy. We really got into it – you feel like you’ve hit the jackpot when you reach up and catch something – something like a plastic keychain. And of course the girls liked it because come on – candy is falling from the sky. One of the sponsors is a bottled water company – they give free water, but since you can’t throw bottles of water at a crowd they hoze the crowd down with a mist of water. 

Come on Nesquik Bunny give us something good.

Here’s our loot – our only disapointment was that we didn’t get a polk-dot hat.

Claire fell asleep after the caravan came through and then soon the bikers came.

There’s the yellow jersey on Bradley Wiggins:

American Levi Leipheimer:

There were so many team cars and so many bikes on top of cars – they zip through pretty quickly.

George!

George!

George!

I like George – George Hincapie of course.

In my giddy excitment I forgot to actually yell GEORGE! Do you think he noticed?

The bikers were pretty spread out at the end of this stage because there had been some climbing earlier in the day. We were about 3 km from the finish. So it turned out great – we got to see them come through in groups for quite a while instead of one big woosh of riders.

Here’s Claire on the way home – finishing the day with more treats. We were all tired, but it was a great day. Vive le Tour!