Eh Voila! C'est Ici..

Hello my friends....as you know, I have been quite excited for some time now that the world's biggest bike race...the TOUR DE FRANCE....has been scheduled to come to the UK....and this weekend it finally arrived.....we planned to see two stages....one in Yorkshire, which is in the North of England, and the one that finished in London....so we went off to see Grandma because she lives very close to where Stage 2 was to finish in the great city of Sheffield...

....when we got to Grandma's we found Cousin Lily waiting patiently for the cycling to start....oh dear...I think she is going to have a long wait....

....on Sunday morning we got the tram across the city to the Fan Zone which had been set up at the Don Valley Bowl...we only planned to stay there for the day with the big crowds to watch the cycling on the big screen and not to actually go to the course...we were saving that for London...but we could hear the excitement from the finish line which was only a very short distance away....

.....we got there nice and early....before the big crowds....in fact, before the day's stage even set off from Harrogate....

....i made sure we were in yellow....our Dogs Trust t-shirt did nicely....

....this looks like a good spot.....and the coverage is just starting....

.....but that was important to ensure we could bag a seat on one of the deck chairs the organisers of Le Tour de Yorkshire had thoughtfully provided....

....I made sure that typist was fully provided for of course....

.....there were some swanky bikes on display.....

...and some fancy cycling caps too.....

...we had an excellent view of the screen.....

....even some Frenchmen had come all the way from France to see the race.....

....we had some crepes for lunch....very French...mine was filled with bananas and Nutella (that's chocolate spread for my foreign visitors)....

....there was festive bunting everywhere in the colours of the famous jerseys of the Tour....

.....even some static bikes....I was asked if I would like to pedal off my pancake lunch!....how rude....

....I was almost on TV too!...that's Jill Douglas from ITV interviewing the family right in front of me...!!

....by the end of the afternoon the crowds had really grown and we spent most of the day sitting in the warm afternoon sun.....even though the skies in my photos look a bit gloomy, it wasn't....

.....I sat on my England flag and my Italian cycling cap on the grass to cheer on the British riders.......

....when I got home I had to tell Cousin Daisy all about it....

.....and today I went again!.....but today we were in London and I was planning to watch the racing live from the roadside....but look who I saw as soon as I arrived...its my pal @bridietheborder from the #BTPosse....what a coincidence....she was moving so fast that we did not realise it was her until after she had gone as we looked at the photo...!!

....the Fan Zone was very busy indeed....

....so I headed out towards Buckingham Palace to see if there were any free spots by the barriers...it would be a long wait though...perhaps 3 or 4 hours....

....reporting live from the Palace.....and YAY! we found a spot on Birdcage Walk about 500 meters from the finish line.....

.....here i am under the famous Flamme Rouge...the red banner which marks the 1km to go point.....

.....at one point I though that the race leader, Vincenzo Nibali, had arrived in the famous Yellow Jersey or Maillot Jaune of the Tour's leading rider....(he won the stage in Sheffield)....but I don't think this is him really...

....we did have the odd weather incident whilst we waited....but we did not get very wet and the atmosphere was very nice...we listened to some race commentary on the radio whilst we waited....

...and after an awful lot of waiting....the riders arrived....going super fast in their "trains" setting up the race for the really fast sprinters.....

....and some time after the leaders the rest of the peloton arrived.....

....followed by all the team cars with the spare bikes...I waved at this one in case Sir Dave Brailsford was inside....

....after the finish I walked round the corner to the finishing straight in The Mall....this is also where the Olympic cycling finished and where typist has finished 3 London Marathons.....it's also the road that the Queen lives on....

....we thought we might go to see the prizes awarded...but the crowds were vast....

....somewhere in the distance Marcel Kittel receives his prize for winning the stage....

....I asked the nice Trek team if they could give me a lift to the finish....

....it was crazy by the team bus park in Horse Guard's Parade...

...so typist and I walked back to the station to get back home....what a wonderful weekend...they think up to 3.5 million people turned out to see the racing....we are very proud to have been a part of it....