Tour de France Time Trial
July 5th
This turned out to be an exhausting but exhilarating day. First we took the train to Nuits-Saint-Georges from Beaune to watch the start of the Time Trial. We arrived early so we could walk around and garner some swag (hats, key chains, cookies? etc.) and walk by the team buses. When attending these kinds of events the question always arises as to where we will find a toilet. Luckily as we walked by the buses a boulangerie appeared so we stopped I for lunch and a cafe and used the facilities before moving on. Disaster averted! Toilets are not easy to find in France. Ok now we were ready to watch the race. We were able to snag a place near the start to watch Mark Cavendish lead off the group. I use the word "lead" loosely here because in actuality he is in last place in the Tour so he starts first. He did just capture his 35th stage win a few days earlier to take the lead in most stages ever won so it was kind of a big deal to see his bike on the stand and watch his start. We watched a few more start and then walked down the route to see how they negotiated the turns through town.
We had made a reservation from Nuits-Saint-Georges to Gevery-Chambertin around 3pm so off we went to catch the train. Once we arrived we had at least a mile walk to the race finish line but we were able to see riders pass by before the end. There were very large screens set up to watch the race. It was fun to see the riders cover the same ground we did a few days before albeit at a much faster pace.
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| Some of the swag we collected |
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| Mark Cavendish's Bike |
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| Race decor in Nuits-Saint-Georges |
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| Cavendish's Start |
A last nice salad dinner at Le Carnot before we leave for Paris in the morning.
Au revoir Beaune! 💕
