au revoir...

Its all over, we're on our way back to calais at the moment but what a great experience this has been. The tour was great, i had no concept of what a big deal it is. The crowds, the entourage, the caravan and the race. It's immense. Someone said yesterday that there were half a million spectators on the course watching yesterdays stage. It certainly seems believable from what we saw on the ride up to mont ventoux. Camper vans, tents and mental dutch fans lining what seemed like every meter of the 21 km that made the climb up. The large numbers of fans werent just for the last stage though, they were there for every one that we saw. All there early enough to avoid the road closures and to take their chances with what is the lottery of the caravan. Thanks to all of the companies who provided us all with enough clothes, water and food we were kept in good shape regardless of it being 30+ or wet with lightning.
Having had no plan other then to watch as many of the stages as possible and having made no arrangements for accomodation it might have been a bit of a disaster. In fact it was quite the opposite, the van was pretty easy to look after and camping consisted of driving it into a place where is would fit before either heading of to watch the tour or cooking up a meal, having a few beers and passing out. Water is available in almost all villages from a fountain and we had nothing but good experiences everywhere we went. Id thoroughly recommend visiting the tour to anyone, but if youre going to do it, make the effort and get yourself up a mountain. You wont be disappointed...



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