NOTE: I am also placing some photos in an album in my MSN Group. If you care to see these additional pictures, you can go to > http://groups.msn.com/Jimtex/shoebox.msnw …and click on the album “Europe – 2006”
It is July 17. I’m still in the South of France because it is so comfortable here for many reasons. We are having a heat wave that is a bit hotter than normal. The temperature is in the 90’s every day so it is just like being home in Texas.
After about a month of seeing the southern central part of France, I’m now near Toulouse again. My friend Michel and his wife Modesta, invited me to stay at their chateau again and I’ve been taking day trips to interesting sights in the area.
Three days ago, I drove south about 60 miles to the countryside near Pamiers to see the 12th stage of the Tour de France. That was very exciting. I arrived early, (about 3 hours before the race passed by) at what I thought would be a good spot – just before a high peak where the riders would be going slower. It was also at a turn which would slow them down some more, perhaps letting me take extra photos. After an hour or so, the side of the small road was packed with the cars and vans of other spectators. About two hours before the riders would be passing by, at least 100 vehicles of all shapes and sizes came by with people inside throwing all kinds of items advertising everything from the newspaper to sausage. My location seemed to be ideal for collecting a bunch of stuff of which I have absolutely no use. After the caravan of advertisers came a hundred or so cars belonging to the press.
During all this time, I visited with the folks who had parked near me. I met a nice young French couple with a 7-year old son who were also attending their first Tour de France event. Several other folks heard my Texas accent butchering their beloved language and stopped by to chat. On my car, I had also placed a small Texas flag that I brought with me, just in case Lance Armstrong came out of retirement. He did not.
Finally, and somewhat anticlimactic, the riders passed by and even though it was at the end of a long uphill stretch and well into the race, they were FAST! I was able to take a video of the procession but had no time to reach for my other still camera. There were two groups: the small pack of 4 or 5 leaders followed by the rest. Within a minute or so, it was all over, except for the riders of course who had another 60 miles or so to go before reaching the day’s finish line in Carcassone. All the spectators then piled into their respective cars/vans and waited in line in the hot sun, going nowhere on a small country road for almost an hour.
Remember that I told you I had arrived early enough to find a good location? Well, that location included a nice big tree that provided me with plenty of shade so I sat on the back of my station wagon, sipped on a bottle of cool water and munched on a couple of breakfast bars containing some unknown (to me) fruit.
All this happened on the 14th of July and as everyone knows, France’s national independence day, so that evening I drove about 30 miles north to Toulouse to see the fireworks. The traffic, parking, crowds and fireworks were much like we experience in Austin. The fireworks lasted about 20 minutes and were well-coordinated with the music that was played on some very large speakers. The difference being that they played the French national anthem and the music was all classical (that means no Lee Greenwood or Willie).
This past weekend, Modesta’s relatives from Spain came to stay at her chateau. They came in two cars and there were 14 of us at the table for a bunch of meals. Now I was faced with additional communication problems: trying to get along in my French, trying to remember things from the three years of high-school Spanish and then trying to understand the Catalan pronunciation (it is different from the Spanish we learn in Texas). A good time was had by all as it was basically a family reunion and they had the additional entertainment provided by me trying to speak their language. The food and wine was fantastic too.
Speaking of wine, Michele is an experienced wine collector and has a wine cellar beneath his house that would be the envy of any collector. His “cave” holds 100’s of bottles of all kinds of wines, many quite old and most of the finest quality. I asked to be allowed to sleep in the cave one night, thinking that I would gain additional knowledge of fine wines by doing so – but he said my snoring might disturb the wine. He did allow me to take both still pictures and videos of his cave.
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