TOUR DE FRANCE 2013 part 2

The lovely people at Tour de France HQ still haven't added detailed itineraries to their website, but we are now committed, we shall be in the Languedoc whilst it's on, so our one outing to spectate will be to the stage starting in Castres. Castres is a great town, very attractive river front buildings, good varied shopping, lots of pavement cafes, good market on Saturday mornings, a yum,yum, yummy maitre chocolaterie and not forgetting our usual reason for visiting - Monsieur Bricolage (d.i.y), a hypermarche and mall, and a Decathlon (which for some reason seem so much better in France). So until the route is disclosed the question is will we just be going to watch the depart or will we catch the action as the peloton zooms past in a blink of the eye en route? En route does mean that after they've gone by the usual conversation goes something along the lines of  'Did you see Cavendish?' - 'Dunno, I saw the green jersey, but I didn't see the yellow' - 'I saw Schleck and Sanchez.....I think'  -  'Where was Cancellera? I thought he was supposed to be in the lead?'.
The moral to all this is if you want to know what is really going on, stay at home and watch it on t.v. - for the 5 hours it is on, virtually everyday for 3 weeks!

So our typical day is watch a bit of 'Village Dapart' a magazine programme broadcast live from the start with local celebrities, cooking, history, a couple of songs. Then dip in and out of the afternoons coverage, coming inside to view when the sun gets too much and the sun bathing too arduous. It's a hard life being a tour fan. And finally the post match analysis with our favourite Frenchman, Gerard Holtz - what will he wear today? what languages will he speak? does he still have a crush on Mark?

Paintings today are provided by artist Andrew Coombes. I particularly like this one as it illustrates the control of a rider in the peloton. A position that was once very much Lance Armstrongs, then Fabian Cancellera and last year a role assumed by Bradley Wiggins. It's not that this person may be in the lead, it's more a position granted by respect. The other paintings I just love because they are so jolly and the riders on the podium is not a subject that I've seen before elevated to fine art. Great stuff!