Le Tour part two: la caravane

After the road closes to traffic, the police and Tour officials do sweeps to ensure that everyone is off the road and that the way is clear for the race. A couple of hours before the bicyclists arrive, a parade of vehicles goes by. At first they are very official looking and police related.

The first of the official and police vehicles to come by us.

As we were waiting, I was reminded of the scene in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where people set up along side a road waiting for the space ships to go zooming by. That was us. And zoom by they did. When the caravane started, we were treated to such a sight. Amazing, cartoony, funny, and weird is how I'd describe it.

LCL is a bank. This is their contingent.

Then come the event sponsors. As each sponsor passed, we'd hear announcements and advertising from their loud speakers. The people working in the caravane threw stuff to the spectators on the side of the road. We had quite a little collection of key chains, hats, magnets, and pouches of cookies and other food products when it was all over. We called it "crap." We wanted them to throw crap at us. And they did.

More of the LCL parade. Banks have a lot of money to spend on this stuff.

Lest you get the wrong idea, this was not a slow parade. These vehicles were moving by us very fast, probably at about 40mph. There was a gendarme stationed at the end of the road we were on to keep us from venturing out into the traffic. I was amazed at how fast they passed by. That's why many of these photos have some blur in them. Speed.

Mickey Mouse!

In between the sponsors there were often more official looking cars or motorcycles and some vehicles with the television logos on them. We couldn't figure out what their purpose might be other than having fun. Everybody waved. I'll stop writing now and let you see what we saw. As usual, click on any of the pictures to see them bigger.

Several cars advertising laundry detergent. Okay...

The car manufacturer Skoda is a huge sponsor of the Tour de France.

This company makes sweet syrups that you add to bubbly water for a refreshing drink.

I don't remember what the ducks were advertising... I found out: a newspaper called Aujourd'hui en France (Today in France).

This rooster is crowing for a brand of cookie.

Vittel, the bottled water people, had several of these strange things going by.

After the caravane had finished, we still had more than an hour to wait for the cyclists. Some of us walked back up to the house for a bathroom break and to get some more wine and snacks for the big show.