Summer holidays (I)

This year's summer had some more complicated logistics, due to Paula's start of university days and Dorien's late start of school holidays. The only one who could stay in France the whole period was Mary, and even she had to do some remote office work. 

Paula has been working 6 days a week, in restaurant La Romanche (http://www.chaletcarpediem.com/en/restaurant-la-romanche), often till midnight, and has been enjoying her first real work experience a lot. The rest of us spend our time with the usual activities: horse riding, working in the garden, cycling, hiking and reading. This summer has been exceptionally wet and the tourist trade has been slow, but for us it didn't matter. Coline, the French friend from the girls, was in the village for 2 weeks, and also cousins Bart and Max turned up for their share of hard outdoor activity.

Also we got the a stone wall build at the edge of the terrace, something we had been planning for 2 years with local contractor Lionel, and after numerous "prochaine semaine" he finally did the job, which Mary completed with a wooden fence. Now we (and the neighbours) have our privacy back again.

 Mary and Paula at the Venosc church

Dorien riding Beau with his neck ring

 Dorien arriving on Col de Cluy

 Cabane du Pre de la Vache, a shelter high in the mountains

Dorien and Mary on a hike near Col d'Ornon

Paula, Max, Bart, Coline and Dorien at the top of the Via Ferrate des Perrons, near Les Deux Alpes

Cycling up Col de la Croix de Fer: Max, Mary, Piet, Bart and Dorien 

Paula is taking orders from her cousins and Dorien, at restaurant La Romanche

The podium on top of Alpe d'Huez: Bart beat Piet again 

Max also finished, and improved his time significantly

Paula riding Beau in a field in our village

Tour de France 2014

This year the Tour de France did not have a mountain top finish on Alpe d'Huez, but luckily (especially for Piet) the circus was still 2 days in the area. On the first day the stage finished in Chamrousse, the ski resort near Grenoble, and the second day the peloton cycled though the valley, on the way to Briancon, and further.

Chamrousse was difficult to reach due to all the closed roads. Fortunately there is a small road going up from our valley, to the famous Col Luitel, ending up on the Tour route some 8 kilometers from the stage finish, halfway the the Chamrousse climb. Piet went by himself, left the car in the valley and cycled up to Col Luitel. Unfortunately it was the hottest day this summer, with temperatures going above 35 degrees. With the steep road this meant a real struggle to cycle up, and Piet was not the only one. Many people had thought of this shortcut, and everybody was overheating..... No complaints, as the Tour cyclists had almost 200 km that day, and Vicenzo Nibali took the stage and full control over the race.

The following day we divided our efforts. Mary and Paula watched near our house on the flat valley road, and Piet and Dorien tried to cycle up toward Col de Lauteret to see the cyclist on a steeper section. Unfortunately the police was very strict this year, and we were not allowed to cycle anywhere. In the end we had to walk almost 5 km (with our bikes) and found a good spot at the start of the climb. A large breakaway group passed first, followed a few minutes later by the peloton, led by Nibali's Astana team. 

As always the spectacle was very enjoyable, and next year the Tour will start in Piet's hometown of Utrecht: very different scenery!

 Michael Kwiatkowski, left behind by the race leaders on Chamrousse

Brice Feillu is struggling up the Chamrousse climb

Sylvain Chavanel is leading a small group up Chamrousse

Dutch talent Tom Dumoulin

Belkin's Steven Kruiswijk is leading the breakaway group on the Col de Lauteret

 The Astana's are leading the peloton on the first slopes of the Lauteret