Tour de France in Paris

Adam and I dropped off the kids with friends and drove to Paris for a quick weekend by ourselves to watch the final stage of the Tour de France. Adam followed several stages during the month and I'm working on getting him to post his trip, but we'll see if he does it. In the meantime, I'll tell you about our time in Paris! Oui, oui, I know you are excited! 

Our fourth floor flat was pretty great! This wall of mirrors was helping me figure out if I liked the clothes I packed. Meh, they were okay. I'd do some things differently next time, but, hey, thanks, mirrors.

 But mostly, I was just excited for a weekend without kids! In Paris! WHOOP!

 The staircases always kill me, in beauty and in the lungs.

 Coming out of our flat and turning left, behold the Tour Eiffel!

 FROMAGE. Nuff said.

 FLEURS. Nuff said.

 ADAM. Nuff said. (Where's that fire emoji when I need it? Ow Owww!)

 DOORS. Do I need to keep up these annoying short sentences?

 The olive color and the windows on this one are just. Wow.

 Adam and I had zero plans for the weekend except one dinner reservation and one Tour de France final stage. So the default priority became: strolling.

 And of course my strolling involves stopping to take a picture every five seconds. I am picking up what he's putting down with that thumbs up.

 Don't underestimate wooden doors. And those door knockers! Yes.

I call this door Creme de la Creme. And you've guessed correctly: I am way too lazy to look up the keyboard codes for typing accents over e's. Desole.

 Dinner was at Colonel Moustache, a place really close to our apartment.

Colonol Moustache was a suave monsieur.

 So was this colonel. I mean monsieur. I mean dude.

Cheese plate was a good one. 

 I got duck, he got beef. Good stuff!

 He got panna cotta, I got rice pudding. Real good, real good.

 Cheers. And where's your moustache?

Truth be told, Adam felt pretty feverish and dizzy all day. He was lucky to feel as good as he did during the day, but right when dinner was over, he was hit with much stronger symptoms and we went straight back to the apartment. 

But not without me stopping to take pics of more doors. Sorry, honey, be right there! GAH this one!

 The arched doorways!!!! Come on!!!

 This was one of the entrances to our building.

 View from our window.

 As the evening wore on, his fever got higher and higher. Finally at 10:30 pm, I set out to find an open pharmacy. I passed this gal on my way:

 We think he had some version of heat stroke and exhaustion due to his previous 3 days of cycling really hard all over the Alps. He felt terrible all night, but by morning, his fever had gone down considerably and he felt like he would live. Phew. It was kind of scary. Being in a foreign country and super sick is very stressful. He felt dizzy again all day, but he rallied.

View from the bedroom window.

 While he slept in, I went running all over town. I love observing tourists' picture taking at the Eiffel Tower. So entertaining.

 And the fountains were filled up! I'd never been to Paris when the fountains were filled! Yeehaw!

 Cute store front.

Feeling better and ready to eat!

 Breakfast was delish!

 Cafe du Marche on Rue Cler gets two big thumbs up from me!

 And we're back ... are there too many pictures of the Eiffel Tower in this post? Why is that thing so mesmerizing? And ouch, the sun is in our eyes.

 Thank you, fellow tourist, for taking our picture.

 After hanging out on the lawns at Trocadero, we headed to the Champs Elysees to wait for the cyclists to come by.

 Before the riders come, they have a big, cheesy parade come through. I love it. But since they do it before every stage, Adam had seen it about 5 times already that month, and he was over it. Ha.

Nevertheless, he was still in his happy place.

 And I'm just happy when he's happy.

Here they are! This is by far the most worthwhile stage to see if you ever want to go because they come by 8 times on the loop between Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. And on the Champs Elysees, you'll see them pass 16 times because they go down and back on either side of the barrier as part of the loop. The winner of the tour is named the day before and there's no competition going on for that. However, the stage is still a race for the sprinters who are trying to win that day's race. Get it? I know a LOT about cycling thanks to A-Ware.

The whir of the pack is so hive-like. The cobblestones add even more noise. It's exhilarating.

They go SO FAST and you think that's pretty impressive until you remember that they've been doing basically a century ride (100 miles) a day, some of it all over the Alps, for 22 days, and then you fall over. Cuz you're dead just thinking about it.

 Whir, whir, whir go the cyclists. I should write a children's book about the Tour de France.

 Pedal, pedal, pedal go the riders.

 Give me one month of nonstop sleep, sil vous plait, say the warriors!

And then I took about a thousand more pictures just like this! After the race, we headed to the car and drove home. We got lost on the way and it took an extra hour and while I was trying to be like, "oh, France, your quaint little towns charm me to no end," I was really like, "just give us a freeway, dang it!" because it was midnight by the time we got home and ain't nobody got patience for a tiny village street at 11:30 at night.

Love you, Paris!