July 29, 2007

Tour de France

Sunday morning we went to church. We are fortunate that the Paris Ward meets just a few blocks away from our apartment. There are meetings in both French and in English. We attended the French meetings for Scott's sake. The kids didn't understand anything, so unfortunately they weren't very reverent. At least they had Primary (the children's class) in English.

After church we had a quick lunch at our apartment and then took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées.

Arc de Triomphe

It was near the Arc de Triomphe that we waited for the cyclists of the Tour de France to arrive in Paris. The destination of the last leg of the Tour de France is Paris and the Champs-Élysées. When we arrived, we saw that there were lots of people waiting. We arrived at what we thought would be a perfect time to see the cyclists to arrive. However, the race had started late because of some rain, and we ended up waiting about an hour and a half.

Tour de France crowds

The cyclists ride up and down the Champs-Élysées eight times. We were right next to the hairpin turn at the end of the Champs-Élysées. We had a great view of the cyclists as they made their way up the street. We lifted up the kids so they could see over the heads of the people in front of us. Here are the leaders just before the first turn.

The leaders

Here is the main body of the pack.

The pack

The helicopters followed the riders up and down the street. We could tell when the cyclists were getting closer to us because the helicopters would start hovering overhead.

Television helicopter

This is a video clip of the third circuit.

Tour de France (video)

We decided not to wait until the end, but to hurry to the apartment to catch the rest on TV. We missed the end of the race, but did get to watch the award ceremonies.

Posted by sjbowden at July 29, 2007 10:41 PM