Our original plan had been to go to Stage 6 of the Tour (Abbeville to Le Havre) but an unfortunate incident involving our wing mirror which had to be replaced, held us up for 2 days waiting for a new part to be delivered and fitted.
So we headed south towards the Alps and Stage 19 ( Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to La Toussuire-Les Sybelles) to suss things out. We concentrated on the area around St. Etienne-de-Cuines after researching the route,and found that the Tour passes there on Thursday 23rd. We also discovered that it will come past La Chambre after the lower part of Col de Madeleine and then onto loop via Epierre on Friday. It might give us time after the Tour had passed through to cycle the couple of miles to St Etienne des Quines and catch them there again!!
Having decided to come back to La Chambre on the 19th we had some time to kill and having read @Mousy thread about their lovely visit to Annecy headed there. The only site that came up on Camping Contact was the Camping Municipal de Belvedere so we plumbed in the sat nav and off we went. Booked in for 2days and decided to cycle round the lake. The Rough Guide said it was 44 kms round Le Lac but I hadn't taken on board the fact that the traffic free section of the cycle route was along the west shore and to go all the way round was on the road. We were went almost as far as Albertville until we realised our mistake and, of course then had to cycle back. We eventually did 45 milesBy then I was on my knees!! The campsite was up a pretty steep hill and I'm afraid I cheated and walked up.
We spent 2 days at the aire in Vassieux en Vercors and then back to La Chambre (which is adjacent to a huge Sports Centre) on Sunday. There had been L'Etape du Tour with 15,000 cyclists passing through La Chambre before we arrived and had been a 'feed station' for the cyclists. We found this out when a man knocked on the van an asked if we would like some bananes!! We said yes ok we would like a few but were presented with a huge box full!! It seemed rude to refuse! It appears that someone had over estimated the order of bananas and there were at least 50 boxes in the foyer of the Sports Centre which they wanted to get rid of! All during the evening cars were turning up to take a box or more. But what would we do with all those bananas? We like them but best will in the world would not be able to eat all those. Next morning people were still turning up to collect more boxes and we surreptitiously returned them back in the pile!
They are obviously expecting a lot of MHs to arrive in La Chambre as they have opened 3 fields for 'Parking Camping-Cars' So we have moved out from the aire and found a spot shaded by walnut trees sitting in a field waiting for the 'Tour' to go past. At the moment there is only one other MH with us in the field so it will be interesting to see how many more turn up before Friday.
Any Funsters heading this way?
So we headed south towards the Alps and Stage 19 ( Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to La Toussuire-Les Sybelles) to suss things out. We concentrated on the area around St. Etienne-de-Cuines after researching the route,and found that the Tour passes there on Thursday 23rd. We also discovered that it will come past La Chambre after the lower part of Col de Madeleine and then onto loop via Epierre on Friday. It might give us time after the Tour had passed through to cycle the couple of miles to St Etienne des Quines and catch them there again!!
Having decided to come back to La Chambre on the 19th we had some time to kill and having read @Mousy thread about their lovely visit to Annecy headed there. The only site that came up on Camping Contact was the Camping Municipal de Belvedere so we plumbed in the sat nav and off we went. Booked in for 2days and decided to cycle round the lake. The Rough Guide said it was 44 kms round Le Lac but I hadn't taken on board the fact that the traffic free section of the cycle route was along the west shore and to go all the way round was on the road. We were went almost as far as Albertville until we realised our mistake and, of course then had to cycle back. We eventually did 45 milesBy then I was on my knees!! The campsite was up a pretty steep hill and I'm afraid I cheated and walked up.
We spent 2 days at the aire in Vassieux en Vercors and then back to La Chambre (which is adjacent to a huge Sports Centre) on Sunday. There had been L'Etape du Tour with 15,000 cyclists passing through La Chambre before we arrived and had been a 'feed station' for the cyclists. We found this out when a man knocked on the van an asked if we would like some bananes!! We said yes ok we would like a few but were presented with a huge box full!! It seemed rude to refuse! It appears that someone had over estimated the order of bananas and there were at least 50 boxes in the foyer of the Sports Centre which they wanted to get rid of! All during the evening cars were turning up to take a box or more. But what would we do with all those bananas? We like them but best will in the world would not be able to eat all those. Next morning people were still turning up to collect more boxes and we surreptitiously returned them back in the pile!
They are obviously expecting a lot of MHs to arrive in La Chambre as they have opened 3 fields for 'Parking Camping-Cars' So we have moved out from the aire and found a spot shaded by walnut trees sitting in a field waiting for the 'Tour' to go past. At the moment there is only one other MH with us in the field so it will be interesting to see how many more turn up before Friday.
Any Funsters heading this way?