A road trip to Alpe d’Huez and the Tour de France

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The Girl, myself, and a few friends are working our way across France down to Alpe d’Huez and the surrounding area for later this week. As such, things will be fairly quiet for the first part of this week while we road-trip our way down there (also why it’s been quiet the last few days, enjoying time with friends and family).

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In the meantime, I give you the above châteaux’s. We saw them on our journey (Châteaux de Chambord is first above, Châteaux de Chenonceau is second). You undoubtedly saw them on TV last week.

And below, our hotel for the night, also a châteaux (Châteaux de Pray). With that, time to head out on the road.

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Fear not, I’ll be sharing lots of TdF action later in the week (and yup, Week in Review posts will return).

Thanks for reading!

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19 Comments

  1. Chateaux already is plural 😀 one chateau, two chateaux.

  2. Chatteaux’s 2 t’s included for more mockery sorry Tristan

  3. pi®

    Château with a circumflex accent on the letter a (castel in old French from Latin castellum gave castel pronounced [cassel] in English).
    “L’anglais, ce n’est jamais que du français mal prononcé.” Georges Clémenceau
    By the way, Chambord instead of “Chamord”.

    Nevermind, great thanks for you reviews and allowing 10% discount and have a good resort in France with your family and friends.

  4. Ted H

    Doesn’t matter to me Ray… It’s all frenchy to me !! LOL.

  5. Doug

    I can’t wait to see the Ad’H report, apparently the roads around it are closed already so it will be crazy-busy just getting near it.

    From watching the Mt Ventoux stage i’ll be interested to read what it’s actually like one on of those mountain stages.

  6. Thor R

    Tres Bon! Enjoy your holiday, we will survive without a few days of DCR.com posts. 🙂

  7. Pat

    Nice TdF follow-ups, can’t wait!

    I am myself thinking of visiting Paris this Sunday. Do you have any recommendations for a first-time-TdF spectator? What time should one arrive to get a good view of the peloton? I’ve read about suggestions to get a place close to a screen so one can follow the action, but where will these be located? Is there any information available prior to the event about things like these? Moreover, is it possible to follow the race (in english) over the radio (since I don’t have roaming)?

    Any chance to see the ceremony without paying for expensive tickets?

    Thank you!

    • Anthony

      6 questions and the poor chap is trying to visit his many chateaux..chapeau.

      Here’s a suggestion: take part in la randonnée du tour:
      link to letour.fr

      Basically, you will have the chance to ride the famous streets and final circuit, a few hours before the Tour riders do, alongside thousands of others. If you don’t have a bike and don’t want to rent one, you could get yourself a vélib (public bike) for a couple of hours: http://www.velib.fr

      Amusez-vous bien

      Later, the Champs Elysées will be completely packed so it’s a question then of finding space where you can.

  8. Robin

    Two of my favorite chateaux. Props to the chimney sweeps at Chambord. Cleaning 282 fireplaces has got to be hard on the back. And how about the sack on Henri II, what with him being not subtle about leaving hints all over the chateaux to his wife about Diane being his mistress. I think the definition of a dream home is a chateaux with a river flowing under it.

  9. Changren Yong

    Nice! You’ll get to see the peloton twice on Alpe d’Huez!

  10. Champ

    fantastic photos!

  11. Alice

    Wow, the second photo is like a dream, congrats Ray, and enjoy the vacations!!

  12. William Linder

    As always, a great post. I’m trying to answer a Tour de France trivia question and hope you or someone following this blog can help with the answer. Here it is:

    On the day of 1989 final Tour de France time trial, Greg Lemond was not satisfied with how his aero bars were installed. He instructed his mechanic to improve the installation by using a piece cut from what specific everyday item?”

  13. Harry

    Nice photeaux’s 🙂

  14. Eddy Spaghetti

    What will the traffic be like near Annecy on Saturday?

    I need to get from Geneva to Provence and I worry I will get stuck in TdF traffic, wish I could stop and watch it!

  15. William Linder

    Thanks Pablo — you are correct. At the last minute Greg’s mechanic used a piece of a Coke can as a shim.