France + Team Dejo = probably a bike race

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Geo: 43.6936, 7.25556

After a decent night's sleep, we were ready to go be tourists.

Or cycling fans. You decide which is more likely.

You think our decision to come to Nice at this particular time -- out of all the destinations Lufthansa serves -- was *purely* based on how pretty it is?
<chuckle>

The folks who put on the Tour de France also organize several smaller races, one of which is the Paris-Nice. It's one of the earlier stage races (meaning a race that takes place over several days) of the year, and it's a fairly Big Deal.
And we were able to get the great airfare deal to just coincide with the last couple of days of this week-long race.

So here we are.

We popped around the corner from the hotel and found a teeny boulangerie with a lovely lady running it, and ordered ourselves deux pain au chocolat, deux cafe, et un boteille l'eau, and paid her the very reasonable €6.90.

Having fueled up for a little while, we hied ourselves the one block to the Promenade des Anglais (the boulevard that runs along the coast of the Mediterranean), and headed down toward where the race was setting up to start.

The team buses weren't there yet, so we wandered along the vendor village, refraining from buying bidons (water bottles) and caps from the team sponsors.

But hey, if the Haribo reps feel like handing out free gummies, who are we to refuse?
And they were nice enough to let Gnorm grab a photo on one of their caravan vehicles.
(for those who haven't yet met him, Gnorm is our traveling buddy. He's a big cycling fan. You can find him on Instagram, too)

A little something we've learned about bike races, when it comes to trying to meet the cyclists: Your chances are MUCH better at the start of a race than at the finish. So we planned tohang out near the team buses, and see who else Gnorm could meet.

(more history for those who don't yet know him, or us: Yes, we could get autographs, but then what do you do with those? And we could just take pictures of the athletes, or take selfies, but that feels weird. But asking for a photo with a Lego minifig for who you've crafted a personality and little life? Totes normal.)

We weren't entirely certain where the team buses would be parking (sometimes it's off on side streets), so we tried to ask one of the nice men guarding the traffic barricades.
"Pardon.....ou et le bus equipe?.....l'autobus pour les cyclists?.....erm...."

(as one of the buses pulled up half a block away)
"Oh....c'est LA! Merci! AU revoir!"

Since we had Gnorm as well as Stunt Gnorm with us, we decided to divide and conquer.
One of the big names that we really wanted to meet, and who isn't likely to come to the Colorado race, is Alberto Contador, who is currently with Team Tinkoff-Saxo. So I hung out by their bus, while Dejo moved down the line to see who he could meet. The Tinkoff team is known for their fluorescent yellow jerseys, and their team bus is decked out in the same shade.
So. Much. Bright-freakin'-yellow. How I wish I'd remembered my sunglasses.

While I missed out on Contador because he didn't so much as look at any fans when he left the bus, Dejo and Gnorm met several riders!
Specifically, Laurens ten Dam, Tom Dumoulin, Andrew Talansky, Richie Porte, Marcel Kittel, and Tom Boonen.

Once the boys had all ridden off to go to work, we scurried back to the car, and headed off to try to get somewhere on the mountain where they would be ending the day's stage.

We kept our eye out for a grocery store on the way, and pulled into a ginormous Carrefour.....which we barely set foot in.
They had a sandwich shop right up front, so we grabbed a couple of ham baguettes, some chips and Cokes, and were done. We really didn't get more than 10%!o(MISSING)f the way into the building, I think.

After an unsuccessful attempt to liberate a directional arrow sign (they put them on with wires that they twist into very tight knots), Dejo navigated us up the very twisty-turny tiny roads towards Utelle, and Pam tried to split the difference between scraping the side of the mountain and falling off the other edge of the road.

We had hoped to drive all the way to the top, but at about 6 km from there, the road was closed off. We could either go back, or go thru this little tunnel and park somewhere on that side of things.
On the other side of this tunnel, there were no spaces to be seen, so -- having learned on our Tour de France trip that the French just park wherever their car fits -- we pulled behind another car in the tunnel.

Oh, the gendarme was cranky about that one!!

We moved the car to the other side of the tunnel and made a spot. Grabbed the portable camp chairs we'd brought for this specific purpose, and headed up to find a viewing point.

It was a beautiful day (if chilly), and the view across the valley was just gorgeous. We had a good signal on our mifi device, so we were able to follow text updates of how the race was going.

The peloton was, as they say, exploded by the time they came by us. That is, they were no longer in a nice bunchy group, but rather they were strung waaaaay out, with the last guys to come by looking like they wished they'd become accountants instead of cyclists.

The gendarmes weren't going to let any spectators drive back down until after the cyclists had all come back (there's no room at the top for their buses, so they had to ride back about 10 miles, to finally be done for the day). Rather than wait for that undetermined hour, we chose to go back thru the tunnel and see where that road led.
It was a pretty drive, and about sunset, we finally made it back to Nice.

We decided to look for someplace a little nicer for dinner (and hopefully with better beer), and after looking at many reviews, decided to see if we could get a table at Melody, which was quite near the hotel.
We did get a table in this small but delightful restaurant, and enjoyed an evening full of really good food, excellent service, and good beer.

I mean, this was the type of restaurant that brings you a new set of silverware specially selected for each course, rather than ask you to just lick off your fork and keep it.
Fancy.

It really was a lovely meal, and a very nice end to a pretty Nice day.

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Photos

Gnorm and Tom Dumoulin*
Pam believes Tom to be the cutest Belgian boy in cycling.

Gnorm and Andrew Talansky*
Gnorm and Andrew go way back....they've met before, in Colorado.
Note the glowing yellow Tinkoff bus in the background.

Attempt #1 at liberating an arrow
This attempt was unsuccessful.