Last night I didn’t bother to set my alarm because I’ve been waking up too early since I got here.
But today turned out differently.
At quarter to eleven, I woke up with a start when the maid entered my room to clean. I couldn’t believe the time. I splashed water on my face and ran out of the room to my car. On the way I could see all the chairs stacked on the tables in the breakfast room. Everyone else was long gone.
I tried to follow the directions to the start but lost the trail somewhere. I ended up finding the start and the parking for presse avant was along the river, below street level. I continued up, thinking there would be more parking spots along the street but I miscalculated. I was already on the course so I continued. I was almost out of Tours where I stopped for gas and to get some money from an ATM because the hotel doesn’t take credit cards.
I drove and drove and was kind of groggy from no breakfast and especially no coffee. I kept going since I was ahead of the publicity caravan. But I forgot there’s now a pre-publicity caravan. They wouldn’t let me pass because I only have a blue sticker this year instead of pink and blue. It was brutal dragging along behind them, so slow.
I followed another journalist with just a blue sticker off the route and then went my own way to get back on. I ended up exactly where I had left off, right behind them again. It was so painful. They let another car with just a blue sticker go through because he was French.
Finally I exited the course to take the autoroute. The scenery might have been good from a helicopter but all I saw were trees so I rationalized thinking I wasn’t missing much. That turned out to be true as well as the race not being so interesting.
I went through a town that was supposed to have access to the autoroute. I drove over the top of the autoroute but couldn’t find the entrance. I went back through the town and it turned out I had taken the wrong fork on a roundabout. I finally got on and made my way to the finish.
There I heard that a press car from some Belgian journalists was broken into in the parking area I passed up on in the morning. So apparently it was a good thing I didn’t park there. All their equipment was stolen.
But now I get my reward.
My hotel is a lovely spread in the town of Drevant, about 10k or so south of St Amand Montrond. It’s a chambre d’hote called La Chaume des Buis. I have my own cottage surrounded by flowers and it’s very modern inside with state of the art bathroom and really comfortable room. It’s on a canal and there are ruins of an old Roman amphitheater very closeby. The owner Catherine is great and very attentive.
