Eliot's Travels

Tour de France - Stage 3
11:59:49 - Welcome To The Live Coverage Of Stage Three [OLN Tour Newflash] The 216.5km third stage from Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg to Valkenburg, Netherlands is scheduled to begin at midday. There is a 4.4km neutral zone before the peloton will arrive at the site of the official start. That is expected to be at around 12.10pm. Live coverage will begin shortly.
It is already very hot at the site of today's finish and the Dutch weather bureau believes that it may well be the hottest day of the year with temperatures expected to rise above 35 degrees Celsius.
Continued at: http://www.olntv.com/tdf/newsflashes/newsflashes.php?ss=newsflashes&e=0300

As the tour was starting up on this 4th of July, we were finishing our lunch in Maastricht and heading back to the hotel room to get our things together. I couldn't resist seeing the tour. Since it was finishing in Holland, I knew we just had to go. I am glad Jim humored me! Since the Tour de France had its start in Amsterdam in 1954, it travelled through the Netherlands six times, in 1954, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1992 and 1996. Interestingly enough, my sister saw the Tour pass through Maastricht from her apartment window when she was there for school the summer of 1992. We took the 13-min train ride from Maastricht to Valkenburg to join the 500,000 other spectators expected there today. In Valkenburg, the tourist board was busy handing out route maps and information on Limburg province. It was obvious where to find the route; people were everywhere.

We wandered along the route trying to figure out where to plant ourselves. There was a bandstand area selling tickets for beer and food. On our way back to the train station, we discovered other areas like this one. We decided a cold drink would be a good start and enjoyed the jovial music and singing before heading off to find a spot. Jim thought maybe there would be fewer people out of town toward the finish (versus in Valkenburg and near the train station). We continued to walk along pedestrian streets winding our way toward the edge of town. The actual finish line was 2.5 km out of town near Berg. The cafes were filled with people eating, drinking, and of course watching the Tour on TV. Loudspeakers blared race updates along the route in Dutch and French.

While Jim was on a work call, the boys and I heard a group of fans singing We are the Champions by Queen. We had arrived at the party. Once we got Jim's full attention, we picked up the boys and pushed our way through the crowd and past the singers. I was serenaded in Dutch about having a baby on my back [Miles was in the Ergo Carrier]. We found a nice spot right away just past the marker: 1 km to the Caulberg summit; about 2.7 km to the finish. It was a little 10 ft2 corner where the boys could stand safely. It was incredibly crowded and we were lucky to have some standing room and even luckier to have some shade. The weather forecasters did not lie - it was very hot, probably between 98 and 100 deg F.

Up the Cauberg - looking left; Miles and "momma" waiting in the heat

It was 3:20. We asked an onlooker when to expect the riders. He said the caravan would be through in 45 minutes and the tour in 1 hr 45 minutes. We had no idea what the caravan was, but realized we still had a long wait, especially for 2 little boys. This spot was to be our scenery for the next 2 hours. We asked the guy about going further up the road - he said no way it's crazy up there. So we stayed put thinking it was pretty crazy here too.

Luckily we had drink and entertainment. The singers were standing in front of a cafe and they were dressed in white shirts with little red polka dots and red horns; we came to call them the devils. Many of you who follow the tour may know the red devil who shows up at most stages. I don't know if they were emmulating him or just playing off the name of the pub - Cafe d'n Ingel (engel is Dutch for angel). The cafe sold 1.75 euro bier at an outside window. We got some great video of the devils singing and heckling people as they passed (no photos, so we have to figure out how to post video).

Cafe to the right of our spot; thousands wait for the riders

posted by Whitney @ 3:00 PM