an hour after the start
A mosquito woke me up, and after killing it, I wrote my diary etc., because the rest of the house was still asleep.
At 10 I arrived at Madeleine’s house and we went to town by bike. At the royal park we locked the bikes and went to the place of the starting event. By accident we entered the VIP zone being in direct touch with the cyclists, their staff and other VIP’s.
But to see the real start, we wanted to move on, so we looked for the exit and the security was surprised that we had been inside. When the Tour started, we were near to the starting line.
After that, we sat down in a park to eat something and then drove around by bike or walked when this was not possible because of Tour-related events. There was the very beautiful Great Market Place and then the small Rue au Beurre with many chocolate stores, where I bought a taste bar and 4 truffles, that compensated the bad luck 3 days before. Then we moved to that street where the finish would take place.
waiting for hour to see some seconds
In the next 1-2 hours, more and more motorcycles and cars belonging to the Tour passed by, that caravan became slowly denser and then the cyclists came in as one big group and within seconds were out of sight again.
Over. Again, many cars with the spare bikes etc followed, then the barriers were put away and it became a normal street again. Madeleine met her friends Matea and Peter and we talked for a while. They had been to Malawi Peter has even been raised there. So maybe, we will meet again in Vienna in December if Madeleine throws a birthday party. We cycled to Moni’s home, seeing the preparations for the next part of the Tour de France. Moni and Andreas had invited us for dinner and then we three talked until midnight, while Andreas and Markus were at a cinema late night show of Spider man.