Our final day of holiday mode, in Paris, no more cycling to be done. We metro'd down to the 'Kremlin Bicetre' in the south of the city, bought some lunch (Madeleines, cheap sweets, tropical juice and a baguette) and settled down to wait for the Tour De France to come by. More punters quickly turned up but we had a great spot. After what seemed like a year of waiting, the 'Caravan' came. Any company who was sponsoring the Tour had floats and cars that threw out freebies which the crowd went absolutely mad for. There was the mother of an African family to the side of us who was wrestling the kids around for free haribo and packets of washing up powder. Then after more waiting the Tour finally arrived. They were so close it was mad. I recognised Thor Hushovd and Philippe Gilbert but everyone else seemed to blam by in a blur. The Green and Yellow Jerseys of Cavendish and Evans were quite recognisable though. After that flash of awesomeness, we got back on the sticky metro and raced over to the Champs Elysees. It was packed. We watched it on the big HD screen for a while until the whizzed by us again. The nature of that section of the race meant that they did eight laps of the champs elysees. So we saw them about 16 times. It was the greatest thing ever. The sight of the pro Peloton at race pace made my heart race. We pushed and shoved back over to the screen to watch Cav win the stage, securing his green sprinters jersey and the tears of Cadel Evans' eyes as he won his first tour. It was a truly magical day. It even made the dire, epic journey home bearable as we were still so buzzed. Another great cycling trip over, hopefully another next year!
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