Tour de France

In 1983, Kraftwerk released a standalone single titled 'Tour de France'. It was, I suspect, my first encounter with the race. 

Last week, a colleague, Stephen, from a company that we work closely with mentioned to the Minx that the Tour would be passing close(ish) to where we're staying, and we decided to go along.

Neither of us are cycling fans, but the Minx is always up for an adventure, and the Kraftwerk connection was enough for me, plus 'étape 16' runs through Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which held its own attraction!

However, my erstwhile bandmate and good friend, John, had also pointed out to the Minx that we were near to Orange, where, in 1986, The Cure filmed a concert at the Théâtre antique d'Orange that was later released as a live video, 'The Cure In Orange'.

That film was released in 1987, and, despite not being a massive fan of The Cure, I watched that video three or four times a week for several months. It is, as you will infer, a great concert film. (I still have my VHS, although nothing to play it on, and it's never been released in any other format.)

And so, en route to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we stopped in Orange, long enough for me to take a photo of the outside of this ancient venue that played such a large part in my musical development. (See Extra)

From there, we proceeded to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, parking up perhaps half a mile out of town and then walking in and finding a mercifully shady spot to stand along the route. 

It was another hot, sunny day but we found somewhere shaded to stand and read it books while we passed the time until the caravan arrived. 

From what Stephen had told the Minx, we had a rough idea what to expect, but I had no idea that just how quickly the gaily decorated promotional vehicles representing the various sponsors would whizz along the street, with the staff on the back tossing out all sorts of merch. Health and safety has definitely *not* gone mad in France!

After that we had another longish wait, during which time the Minx went to order us pizzas, before the leading peloton went past at an incredible pace, which I don't think I could do justice with a photograph.

In fact, today's Blip is taken from the second peloton that passed us. Although you can see in the photo how closely they are riding together, when you see it at speed, it's quite alarming. 

We waited for another ten minutes for the final peloton to fly passed us, and like their predecessors, they were cheered on by the wildly enthusiastic crowd. 

Once they'd passed and people began to wander into the streets, the Minx collected our pizzas and we wandered up into town to find a place to eat them: a little wall in the shade provided the perfect location for our al fresco meal. 

Once we'd eaten, we left the miniMinx reading her book and walked up to one of the many wine shops to buy ourselves a few wine-based souvenirs. It was Châteauneuf-du-Pape after all!