Plancoët.. and Le Tour part 1

Three o clock is seemingly the consistent time to allow arrivals into a campsite, we arrived at 14.50 and was told rather abruptly by the independent owner of Camping Les Vergers to hold back and park in the car park in front of the campsite.

At this point Jo and I thought "oh no" a grumpy french man in charge here and we've already upset him by 10 minutes.... that's all we need!

We also noted another camper in front of us, so maybe they had the same comms as us.. anyhow we waited till 15.10 and lo and behold he came out to where we were parked to beckon us forward.

I tentatively ventured towards the campsite office and my plan was "kill with kindness', I need not have worried, he was a pussycat.. just a stickler for the rules. It was his site and he was in charge ..... Monsieur Les Vergers seemed to enjoy my french language efforts.. we got by and we then followed him on his scooter to our designated spot... perfect .. a large open space, he was relaxed about which way Tassie pointed .... we even shared a laugh about not being bothered despite neither of us probably exchanging words we both fully understood... I think he was amused at 2 females just not being too bothered about the pitch as long as we were roughly level on a flat pitch... off he went back on his scooter for the next arrival.

The set up drill complete ... electric on.. water filled ... chairs out... beverage in hand.. we were all good to go...

The campsite had a little bar area ... the plan was to have a little walk into town (150m away) to establish a good vantage point to watch Le Tour come through the following day, then return to the campsite bar before heading back to Tassie for dinner.

A nice walk around this little town, checking out the local boulangerie and finding couple of options of where to watch the cyclists come though looked good.. so mission accomplished.

A drink at the campsite bar was next on the list.... and grumpy campsite owner guy could not have been more friendly.... his wife running the bar, he had a busy night as camper vans and caravans kept arriving... despite the sign saying the site was full.... there was at least 25 vacant pitches.. guessing many of those who had paid an initial deposit of just 8 euros had failed to let him know they would not be turning up.

A great nights sleep.. nice clean facilities,,,, La Planning Queen had informed me of the itinerary of the day.... "the Le Tour caravan comes through at 12.30 and based on speed of the cyclists the earliest the cyclists would come through would be 14.25" so we set out about 11.30 to walk into town, finding our favoured spot was still available... hurrah!

The packing list for waiting for around 3 hours from the start to finish - 2 stools to sit on, 2 water bottles and 2 cans of Orangina ... we were all set up

The wait was short, about 45 minutes later the road started to build up with various support vehicles coming through in advance of the sponsorship "caravan"... the caravan was around a 30 minute display by all of the various sponsors of the event, plus some official cars with what was probably paying guests and local dignitaries enjoying their moment of being cheered along the route.

There were quite a few vehicles bringing a smile to the faces of the crowd.. for me it was . "the leeks" and "the Orangina bottle" other cheers went up for the larger than life cyclists and the various wagons throwing out a huge amount of freebie goodies ... ranging from hats and t shirts to small bags of Haribo and rather odd (according to Jo) crunchy nutty chorizo... she declined to eat anymore after tasting the first one!

After the crazy caravan passed through.. we awaited the cyclists... Jo had been tracking the start on her phone via the LdF website, so we roughly knew we had a further 90 minute wait as we were closer to the start than the finish of that stage of the tour.

Sure enough they came through, and were ahead of the anticipated timings at 46km/hr... but actually came through at 53km/hr (34 mph).

Two groups - the first was a breakaway group of 8 bikes with Geraint Thomas, the remainder all came through in the peloton about 30 seconds later .. flying past with Pojacar in the yellow jersey.

In a flash it was all over ... the sun had been shining ... the crowd had been friendly, encouraging and buoyant.... before descending into quiet dispersal.

For us it was back to the campsite a few minutes walk away, and get set to leave, knowing the roads would be open about 30 minutes later.

It was time to head south we were meeting up with Jill at Lac De Chambon near Clermont- Ferrand the following day in time to watch Stage 10, a few days later, but first we had to find a place to stay en route ... it would be a France Passion .... with none around except chickens and goats!Read more