Day 2 - Tuesday, July 22nd - The Climbing Begins! Les Deux Alpes
Today's ride had everything the mountains can offer...beautiful views, tough climbs, clean air, narrow roads, steep drop-offs, and tunnels. We climbed Les Deux Alpes, a medium length (only about 6 miles of climbing!) steep road that winds its way up to a small, quaint ski resort town. A wonderful husband and wife team served up a hearty pasta lunch that restored our energy and we headed back across the "balcony road" between Les Deux Alpes and Alpe d'Huez. The French don't fool around with such nonsense as guard rails or wide lanes for passing...you're pretty much relying on good riding sense and gracious drivers to share the road safely. This day was breathtaking, and we returned to Alpe d'Huez as some of the early fans were already painting the road in anticipation of the Tour de France stage on the mountain tomorrow.
The Trip Begins! Monday, July 21st
We met the rest of the group at 10 a.m. at the Grenoble train station. It's a real mix -- retirees, father & son, small groups of friends. Our bus takes us to Bourg D' Oisans, the gateway to the Alps. There we are fitted to our bikes -- the Trek Madone 5.2, an excellent carbon bike well-suited to climbing mountains. This was the model that Lance rode.
We began our ride that afternoon through a valley to "warm up."
But we also got a taste of climbing in the French Alps and had a great warm-up for the next few days of uphill riding.
We needed some culture
Next - time for the museums and historical sights! First the Pompidou Centre, home of the French National Museum of Modern Art. The Pompidou was controversial from day 1, due to its extraordinary design that has most normally internal functions of the building on the outside. It's different, as is most modern art to the eye of the beholder. We viewed a huge number of works which cover the entire 20th Century of the art world.
Ste-Chapelle was built in the 13th Century by King Louis IX partly to house his collection of Holy relics, including Jesus' Crown of Thorns. The stained glass is hardly done justice in pictures it is so detailed and colorful. The windows in the church tell the story of the entire Old Testament (if you know how to read them).
Next was the smallest museum of the day, Musee de L'Orangerie, adjacent to Musee du Louvre in the Jardin des Tuileries. This place just reopened a couple of years ago after extensive renovations. It houses a small but important collection of Impressionist Art, most notably two oval galleries which surround the viewer with Monet's Water Lilies like you've never seen. Quite fantastic!
To follow this we went a few blocks down the street and across the Seine to the Musee D'Orsay, which houses perhaps the finest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world. We took a 90 mintue guided tour (in English) and learned a lot more about many of our favorite artists. Another unique house for art, too, the D'Orsay is a former train station that was converted and reopened about 30 years ago.
We thoroughly enjoyed all of these fine arts palaces and wish we had time and energy for the Granddaddy of them, the Louvre, but that is to be for another time.
French Gastronomy and Landmarks
For dinner we took the recommendation of friends for classic French cuisine at La Fontaine du Mars. Starting out with Foie de Gras (until recently illegal to serve in Chicago), we also sampled delicious dishes of Mullet, a regional fish, and classically prepared Canard (duck). Finishing off the meal (and us in the process) were two very French chocolate delights. Even though the French dine later than we're accustomed to we had time to walk to the Eiffel Tower, adjacent to the Place de la Concorde, which we'll hear more about later in the week. The Eiffel Tower is a beautiful structure which is lit at night with subtle blue floodlamps.
How to recover from jet lag in Paris ...
We left for Paris four days before the official start of our bike tour, partly to overcome jet lag and do a bit of sight seeing. We arrived in Paris on Thursday morning, July 17th, checked in, and hit the ground running. We left our hotel in St. Germain and walked through the Luxembourg Gardens, a beautifully landscaped oasis in the middle of Paris.
Prelude to the Tour de France
We're in Paris quite unexpectedly!A few weeks ago we attended a fundraising event in Evanston featuring Phil Liggett, longtime Tour de France announcer. We look forward to the beginning of the Tour every July and are glued to the TV for three weeks, watching the greatest cycling event in the world. So the chance to see and hear Phil for a small contribution to benefit the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation was too good to pass up. Turin Bicycle hosted a great evening and in the charity auction that followed we were the lucky winners of this dream trip to the Alps, to bike part of the Tour course and watch parts of the Tour itself.
Our biking starts in the French Alps at one of the most famous mountain climbs of the Tour de France, Alpe d'Huez ("Alp Doo-Ezz"). The TDF has held a stage here nearly every year for the last three decades, and Tours have been won and lost on this tough mountain.
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