Le Tour de France - Porrentruy, Switzerland

Well as you may or may not know Adam has been holed up in Haugesund, Norway for the last 2 weeks. Therefore, there has not been a whole lot happening around here. Since he was home for the weekend, he was itching to go do something fun. It just so happened that the Tour de France was coming through Switzerland about 2 hours from us. So naturally Adam was all over that. We took off around lunch time and headed to Porrentruy. It took 3 different train rides but we finally  made it. It's a very very small town with not a whole lot to do. It's not very big which is also kind of a bonus. The streets were packed with people, food and drink stands, and large TV's so you could keep an eye on the race.

The Eiffel Tower along the route of the tour

One of the posters for the tour

Block Party for the tour

We were walking around trying to figure out the best place to park ourselves to see the main event. While in one area a group of people came through with cars and everyone started cheering so we thought everyone was about to start coming through...WRONG!!! We arrived in town around 2:30ish and I don't think the bikers came through until around 4:30-5:00pm. So of course we had no idea what was going on, we just stood around for awhile hanging out. Adam had heard there was  a hospitality caravan but we also had no idea what that meant. Well you know it when it happens. A hospitality caravan is like a fast moving parade of sponsors for the tour. A ton of the sponsors have vans and floats that come through and they toss out their product. When I say toss I use the term loosely. The girls throwing the key chains, hats, food, etc...can really fling that stuff hard. I was hit upside the head with a bag of hard candy and Adam was nailed in the chest with a couple pouches of liquid flavoring for water. So be prepared and cover your children if you go =)

Watching the route

The biggest sponsor, Vittel Water, was passing out water bottles...not throwing

Some kind of weird horse guys on stilts

The parade coming through

The main sponsor for le tour 

After the caravan was through there were a few more cars and motorcycles going through and then finally the main event. First came the motorcycle and then following was Pinot the winner for Stage 8.

Bikers coming through

The second group of bikers coming through. The guy in the yellow jersey is the winner from the day before.

The next group coming through

Another group of bikers coming through

Following him was a car with extra bikes on top. A few minutes later there was another motorcycle cop and following him was a large group of bikers. I'm assuming in that bunch was the 2nd and 3rd place winners. We were at the 2km mark so they still had some time to get around and win it at the end. We watched as the motorcycle cops led the different packs through town followed by cars carrying the back up bikes just in case. After waiting about 3 hours for this and the bikers coming through in about 5 seconds, we were exhausted and ready to go sit on the train.

 A video of the winner Pinot coming through town

This experience was very cool. Watching the bikers come through town and witnessing the race was so much fun. Totally worth the trip to head over and catch a leg of one of the races. Maybe in France next time who knows =)