Le grand départ: our man in Toulouse, Foix and Tarbes
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It's always a fun game to play whenever you're in France: see how long it takes any given French person to work out you're English and, from that moment on, speak nothing but English to you. Nine times out of ten they can tell before you even open your mouth. So you can see why it was a pleasant surprise for my first French encounter - at the ticket machines at Toulouse airport's tram station - to begin like this. Me, French? Let alone a local... Had this lady not seen my huge Karrimor rucksack with a big Berghaus raincoat strapped onto the top? (Not a drop of rain has fallen so far, as it happens...) How about the large padded bag with my bike inside, with the words ULTIMATE TRAVEL BAG plastered across the front? What about the trouble I was quite evidently having trying to find the 2 euro coin the machine wanted among the other coins in my wallet? Clearly, she just hadn't looked me up and down properly yet, because before I knew it she was addressing me in English. Refusing to admit defeat and obstinately continuing in French, I was able to show her how to buy the right ticket (not sure local knowledge was really a prerequisite...) and, half an hour later I was at the other end of the tramline, in the centre of Toulouse.
In fact, that wasn't Monday's only case of mistaken identity: as I sat in a park eating the obligatory first French lunch of taboulé oriental/céleri rémoulade/carottes râpées, I was approached by a worried-looking lady, who was convinced that a tiny, tiny, tiny dog she had just seen running around without an owner must be mine. Maybe I should have played along with it and taken the dog after all - could have made for a fun companion... Or on second thoughts I don't think I would have had a hand free to hold the leash... After a flying visit to a very high-tech Decathlon to pick up some final camping supplies, I headed for the station to catch a train to Foix, where I was to camp for two nights in order to catch the Tour de France as it passed nearby on Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning I set off on my bike from Foix, climbing up to the Col de Péguère on a nice shady road which was frequented by more cyclists than cars, it seemed.
The rolling road closures caught up with me a kilometre or so before the col (the gendarmes were out in full force), so I made the final ascent on foot, but was treated nevertheless, along with the many other cyclists who were with me by this point, to various shouts and klaxon-beeps of encouragement from the campervans parked up on either side of the road, in prime position to see the action unfold on the descent. The reason they close the roads so long before the cyclists pass (a good three hours in this case) is because of the caravane - a huge convoy of sponsors' floats, stretching for kilometres, and from which various freebies are thrown at the spectators. Scrabbles were frequent among small children trying to get their hands on a keyring or a packet of haribos, but the disappointment showed when they discovered what they'd just succeeded in catching was a washing powder sample. A bizarrely large proportion of the sponsors seemed to be saussicon sec producers - but then again, I suppose this is France... I managed to get my hands on a red and white spotty t-shirt and cap from the sponsors of the King of the Mountains Jersey, E. Leclerc, although I'm not sure it was much of an achievement, seeing as they dished one out to everyone and made very sure that everybody put theirs on for the TV cameras. So much for my hopes of recognising myself in the playback footage by wearing my Oxford triathlon club cycling jersey...
The man standing next to me, proudly brandishing his Normandy flag, had been a spectator at every stage of the Tour so far, and did a very good job of shouting out the names of the each of the cyclists as they came over the line. The Canadian Hugo Houle of Israel-Premier Tech was first as the race passed us, and he kept his already quite significant lead all the way down to the finish line in Foix. With the caravane and so many cars and motorbikes before, amongst and after the cyclists, as everyone I talked to seemed to remark, le Tour de France, ce n'est pas très écolo!
On Wednesday, I moved on from Foix to Tarbes, making the most of the €1 train tickets for under-25s all summer in the Occitanie region - Great Western Railway, you've got some serious lessons to learn! Mais bien sûr, being in France, the signallers were on strike on the section of the line between Toulouse and Tarbes, so after much convincing of a Portuguese coach driver (who was taking passengers all the way to Porto), I was allowed to put my bike in the hold and so took the coach for the two hour journey to Tarbes. For almost the entirety of those two hours, the man sitting next to me, who was retired and, from the sound of it, spent most of his time travelling on that coach between Toulouse, Bayonne and Portugal, tried to convince me to come to his own town's festival, les Fêtes de Bayonne, instead of Jazz in Marciac, my intended destination for two weeks, as a volunteer. Safe to say he didn't succeed, and as I write I am most definitely in Marciac, although he did make a valiant effort, and his talk was fully illustrated with pictures and videos - much to the annoyance of certain other passengers - of the traditional singing, dancing, drinking and bull fighting which takes place every year for five days at the end of July.
On the way from the coach stop to the Airbnb I had booked for the night in Tarbes, every bus stop seemed to be displaying a Jazz in Marciac poster - nearly there!
Useful phrases:
Le bagage hors format - Oversize luggage
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