Le Tour de France

What an exciting day. The Tour de France held the penultimate stage here in Grenoble. The course was 42.5 km, starting and ending on the northeastern side of town with a climb up through the eastern mountains. The riders have to mountains to climb, first is the Brie-et-Angonnes which sits at 475 m above sea level, followed by Saint-Martin D'uriage which is at 593 m. For reference, Grenoble sits about 213 m from sea level and . Here's a map of the course.

I rode the bus into town and then walked over to the start of the course by about 10AM. It was quite the spectacle. Near the Velodome, each team had set up their trailers and were preparing bikes for the day and eager fans were sitting outside the gates, peering through visible spots cheering on their favored team. There was even a band, yes a band in the musician-sense, of guys dressed as vikings playing rehearsed songs. It was great to see! Other people had bought or brought flags of their respective countries and were wearing them as capes. I walked down the race course a bit and unexpectedly ran into some friends. We parted from the area around a little after 1pm, I to do some shopping, and they to return home and have some lunch.

As I walked back there were a group of students, probably middle or high school, asking us to sign something for the deaf and mute. This particular girl wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to donate 2 euros. I accidentally took out 1 euro and she asked for the second. I pulled out a 2 euro coin and hoped to take back the 1 euro coin, but before I could, she closed her hand. In the end I ended up giving her 3 euros (150% more than I decided to). I've never experienced such a thing in the U.S. Though people ask for donations and pledges, they don't grab money from you like that. This isn't the first time I've heard to be careful in France regarding people asking for money or donations. In Paris, it's common to see people selling these "love bracelets," woven wristbands. Without asking you, they would try and tie one of these bands around your wrist and then ask for 5 euros. You need to be very careful about this type of "salesmanship." In contrast though, there was another group in Paris near the Gares Montparnasse that was advocating cancer awareness and they were quite pleasant to deal with. So I'm not sure, but in the end, I need to be more cautious.

From here, I returned to the guesthouse, took a nap and then decided to head back into town to see if there were events going on in celebration of the tour de France. In an anticlimatic way, there was none. I didn't hear bands playing. The nightlife didn't seem any busier. Restaurants seemed the same and streets seemed less crowded. Where had all the people who had been there during the race gone? I returned to the area where the race started and found my answer. The caravans had all left, not a single one was still near the Velodome. For the most part, the park was cleared out, you could barely tell there had been a race during the day. The trampled green grass will probably grow back within a week. It's quite a sad scene to see such a well-televised event come and go like that and leave very little trace outside of a poster ornews column. Sigh.

Vikings.

The start.

The finish.

The podium.

Some kangaroos.