Day 5 Tour De France

Today we were able to sleep in until 8:45, skipped breakfast and got on the bus to the airport headed for Paris. The plane ride was just under an hour, leaving us lots of time in Paris before night came on. When we checked into our 4 star hotel, the Chateau Frontenac, we found a balcony calling to us. Our room is one of the only rooms in the hotel that has a balcony access and it just happens to wrap around the building for a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. After checking out our room for the next three nights, we headed downstairs to the basement for a quick drink and watched a bit of the tour. From then on, it was time to explore.
We headed to the Des Champs Elysees which is a street full of shopping, higher end. We ate at a nice pizza café on the sidewalk. We sat there eating and watching people. Several different languages and several different styles walked by our table. We kept guessing where people were coming from, their nationality being French, Japanese, English, American, or German. We were getting pretty good at guessing. After lunch we high tailed it back to the hotel to change into warmer clothes for our adventure to the Eiffel Tower. It took us about 20 minutes to walk there from our hotel. We had a nice walk along the river, and stopped for a chocolate crepe and popcorn. We then crossed the street and sat beneath the tower on a bench and ate our snacks looking up the center of the tower. We then decided to walk up instead of taking the elevator due to the lines were very long and the top was already closed due to weight capacity, too many people. We ended up walking up the stairs to the 2nd level, about 175 feet high. Pretty scary when your afraid of heights, but if you looked around instead of down, you were ok. It was absolutely beautiful. We missed the sunset due to climbing stairs, but once we were to the viewing level, the lights of the city really started to show. After reviewing the history of the city, we decided to head back down the stairs to take a better look at the tower of lights from a distance. The whole tower is lit with flashing lights as soon as the sun goes down. You can see the lights for up to 24 miles.
After gaulking at all the structures and monuments that Paris has to offer, far more than one can possibly absorb in just one day, we decided to take a long walk back to the hotel and then across the street for our nightly expresso.

Day 6, Tour de France

Today was another great adventure. We were determined not to take any taxi's or any other transportation except for our feet. We ended up walking for about 5 or 6 hours. We had to start the day by going for breakfast. They eat a lot of fish here, salmon. Bread is usually served without butter, and they usually have either a honey bread or French bread that always says its fresh, but if you are going to eat any at all, you must eat first thing in the morning because the same loafs stay out all day uncovered and become very hard. The sandwiches are the same way. They pre make all the sandwiches even with tomatoes, meat, cheese, but they don't cover them, they leave them out like on display, except when you order, you get the display. We noticed that the French do not use preservatives, so all their food is fresh. We even experienced a grocery store here. They had one whole isle just for cheese, all sorts of cheese. Don't get me wrong, the food here is good, lots of restaurants to choose from. Enough with that, on with our day.

We went to the Louvre. Our mission was to see the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Getting inside the Louvre was very challenging. There were no signs letting us know where to go to enter. We finally figured out that you have to go downstairs underground to enter. Once inside we needed to find a toilet because we had eaten breakfast and walked all across town. Little did we know that the French have these massive buildings but didn't think of toilets, they must have been an after thought. We finally found them after asking directions twice- my French is not really good so I had to rely on hand gestures. Everyone we approached was very nice, smiled, and attempted to help us in English as much as possible, but not all speak English. Sometimes here in France they have only one bathroom for men and women. Sometimes you go in and there will be stalls with doors for women, and then urinals for men. I wasn't so sure a couple of times if I was in the right place so I would ask and they assured me that I was correct. I saw more than I should have a couple of times, but oh well. Mostly this was in the country areas of France. In Paris, all was normal, just like in the USA. After the restroom issue, we adventured off to locate the Mona Lisa. They are remodeling, so the map that we had was not always correct. Some portions of the museum were closed. We finally decided to go all the way to the top and work our way down. When we still could not locate the painting, we followed the flow of people. We finally reached this room with swarms of people around the painting. I always thought of this painting as being more massive than what it turned out to be. I also pictured this painting as being in a dark room with soft light illuminating the painting with it being the only painting in the room so as to not take any attention away. Instead, it was on display, rather a new display, that positioned the painting in the middle of the huge room with tons of other paintings on the other outer walls of the room. It was hard to get close enough to see due to all the people. Next, we headed to the basement of the Louvre where we caught a glimpse of the castle that the Louvre was built on top of. Some of it's original structure was still there.

After the Louvre, we went to the Notre Dame. Even if your not a religious person, the beauty of all the stain glass windows and the enormity of the structure will take your breath away. The thought that they could start building something this detailed and massive in 1163. They were even doing confessionals that had a line out the door. There were candles lit everywhere and people praying everywhere as well. This is a very busy weekend.

Next, we walked over to one of our favorites, the Musee d'Orsay. This is a museum full of impressionists, art. Claude Monet's paintings were here in three different rooms. This museum has more than just paintings, but that is all we wish to see.

Now it is time for our lunch in town. We decided to go down some side streets to get away for the touristy part of the city. We ended up going for giro's. This was funny because an avian water, coke, and a huge gyro with fries that both of us shared cost only 7.50 in euros, but we had McDonald's before and it cost us 20 euros. We have found that the prices here are not consistent. They pretty much charge you what ever they can get in a certain area. So, if you go to another area, you might pay more, or you might pay less. Now, we must find another toilet. Our adventure led us to a hotel tucked away in the middle of everything. We asked the lady if we could use the toilets and she agreed and instructed us on where to go. This is very uncommon, due to there are public restrooms about but you have to pay anywhere from 20cents to 50cents to use them, and good luck finding them. While we were inside the building we investigated a little, we took pictures of an old elevator that was a cage. We also did a little shopping and picked up some mouth watering treats made here in Paris. After that, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner. Dinner tonight was on Trek. They were taking us to a lovely restaurant about 10 min walk. We ate like Kings, and had lots and lots of wine. Another successful end to a wonderful day, although for some in our party, the night was still young. 4am??

Day 7 Tour De France

Here it is the last day of our trip and the day Lance wins number 7. We got up late and missed the ride on the Champ Elleesy. We spent to much time and energy walking everywhere yesterday. After breakfast I went with a couple of other people from our group and walked to a souvenir stand. We waited for about 30 minutes in the rain to be able to get some cool Tour things. It was raining off and on the entire morning. After walking back to the hotel Jodi and I decided to go out for some more things, this was our last day to shop. We were walking up the Champs Elleesy heading for the Arc De Triumph and I noticed a couple standing with two Trek bikes in neon yellow rain jackets and without hesitation blurted out Jim and Kim. We ran into Jim and Kim Griffin from Tampa in the middle of Paris and millions of people. We talked with them for at least an hour and got caught up on their travels. They went to Germany on June 27th and rented a RV, drove to France, and have followed the tour to different areas for the entire month. They even competed in a one day race that covers one of the stages in the tour. During breakfast they even got to talk to John Kerry about the race and their travels. This was a wonderful treat to be able to find them. We had their phone number and wanted to get in touch with them, but between our travels from town to town and my cell not working and fear of trying to use a phone we never called them.
We parted ways and went out for some lunch before heading over to the Automobile club, where we would be watching the final stage.
At 1 pm our group headed out for a 25 minute walk to our viewing area. We walked by several Embassy's from around the world and the Automobile club was next door to the US Embassy. Security was tight. We had two floors reserved for about 300 Trek and Discovery people. One floor had a huge balcony and the other floor had big windows looking out onto the course. We had a great view of the Eiffel tour and all the team buses were parked directly in front of us. There was a huge jumbo TV out in one of the turns and a lot of TV's throughout our two floors, so we had snacks and watched the race work it's way towards Paris. Lance was getting way to much film coverage, it looked like there were more motorcycles filming than riders riding. It was scary several times looking like there would be a crash. As they got near Paris several of the Discovery riders went down in a turn on the slick roads, Lance and his mountain biking skills avoided a crash and they had a good laugh after everyone was up and ok.
The race entered into Paris and they rode by us on several laps around the Champs Elleesy. There were a few more crashes, but no one was injured. After the finish they had several ceremonies for the different jersey winners and the best team. We decided to go into the, pits, or team bus area and walk around. We were with one of tour guides from Hawaii named Shannon. Her and her husband were there, she was with a Trek Travel group doing a trip and he was visiting from London. We walked up to the Phonak bus and she asked if Floyd was there and the guy says sure I'll get him for you. Floyd came out with champagne in hand and we started chatting with him like we had known him for years. It is nice to see that the riders are very accessible and friendly. The Discovery bus had a couple of hundred of people crowded around, we hung out there for a few minutes and got a couple of pictures and then decided to walk around and see other people. We got several other good pics and had a great time hanging out. We walked back to the hotel and decided to go out for some dinner. We found a small little family restaurant a few blocks from the hotel and had a nice meal. After that we went to the room packed up everything and hit the bed. We fly out at 12:20pm on Monday.
The pictures are up on the website, in order to get to them on the home page simply click on the large landscape picture of all the mountain bikers at the top of the page and that will take you to our picture page. The tour pictures are the top item.
We hope that you enjoyed reading about our adventure and highly recommend to anyone a Trek Travel trip. When you sign up for a trip and mention that you found out about the trip from Carrollwood Bicycle Emporium you will get a $200 credit in our shop. We have brochures here on all there trips which range from wknd getaways to the California wine country to 10 day trips to New Zealand. They are worth every penny.
Lastly I want to say thank you to all of you for helping us earn this trip of a lifetime and thank you to Dan and Andrew who invited us to go. Trek is a great American company that knows how to take care of it's staff, and customers. THANK YOU

ladies night out/fit for women demo tour May 18th

Ladies mark your calender for May 18th 4pm to 8pm at the Suncoast trailhead we will be hosting a Demo tour with Trek bicycles.

Ladies Night Out/Fit for Women Demo Tour
Wednesday May 18th
Suncoast Trailhead At Lutz Lake Fern Road
4pm - 8pm
There will be a 14ft Trailer and Touareg with music, a professional Female Mechanic to help women do bike set up on their own bikes, promotion for women specific products, Free Bicycle Demo, hydration, and lots of give away items.

Activities:
Bikes Available for Demo Rides:
Madone 5.2 sl WSD
Pilot 5.0 WSD
Equinox 7

There will be a professional female mechanic to do bike fit for women, either on the bikes that you demo, or on your own bike. Any mechanical questions can be answered as well as any fit questions you have.

Give Away’s- FREE
-Schwagg Bags (goodie bags)-They will contain (maybe more):
Peak bar, Water bottle, Bottle,Dasani water,All in a Nike bag!

-Chance to enter drawing with Trek Bicycle for future drawing.

-Enter drawing for $100.00 Gift Certificate to Carrollwood Bicycle Emporium.

-Everyone who attends will receive a $20.00 Coupon for Carrollwood Bicycle Emporium.

Sponsors:
Trek WSD bikes and accessories, Dasani Water,
Nike cycling clothing and shoes, Peak Bars, Volkswagon