Tour de France

Regular readers of this blog may remember (see post of April 9) that we are planning on taking another overseas trip like the one in 2019, this time to France.  The original plan was to first visit Scotland and drive a Mini Cooper in that country with a small group of Mini enthusiasts, then make our way via the Eurostar to France; but the company organizing the trip is a small one and was badly affected by Covid, so we have had to cancel that portion of the trip.  However, the trip to France is very much still in our plans, and in fact we will be driving to Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday - tomorrow morning. (Tomorrow!!!).  While I am sorting through photos and updating this blog about our trip to Hendersonville, I am surrounded by a variety of travel necessities – passport, tiny umbrella, adapter plugs for French outlets, Covid test kits – and we will begin final packing tomorrow, making our way down the lists we have been keeping for many weeks now.  We are not seasoned overseas travelers – this is only the third time we have been overseas – but we are organized, and we are trusting that good organization will prevail over the horror stories we are hearing about cancelled flights and overcrowded airports this summer.

Our plan is still to spend five days at the Hotel Mercure in Paris, taking walking tours of the city, visiting the Eiffel Tour and the Louvre, and having a luncheon cruise on the Seine – all of these thanks to Martha’s good sense and ability to identify and make reservations.  After our time in Paris, we will begin a two-week Trafalgar tour that will take us on a route throughout France to see destinations we have long dreamed of visiting, including Van Gogh’s Arles, Monet’s Giverny, Monaco, the Riviera, Lourdes, Bordeaux, and the beaches of Normandy.  Our Tour Director, Bruno Courtois, has already contacted us, and he sounds as professional as the other tour directors we have relied on in the past.  We have also been communicating with a wonderful man named Jean-Charles Sarfati, with an organization called Paris Running Tours, who is going to take us on a three- to four-mile run from our Hotel to various nearby sights on our first morning in Paris.  What a great way to be introduced to the city, and also to loosen up our travel-cramped legs!

Just as I did in 2019 for our trip to Britain and Ireland, this blog will fall silent for three weeks.  But I will take notes, day by day, of our adventures, and write it all up when we return.

I have been watching highlights of the 2022 Tour de France on YouTube.  What beautiful countryside passes by those fit young cyclists as they compete together in this bicycle race!  It is the perfect way to prepare for this journey to a country we have never visited before – our own Tour de France!  As Tennyson said in Ulysses:

. . . Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars . . ..

Allons-y!