Its going to be a bit retrospective but now i have some time i am going to catch up with the fun and games from the Tour de France 2010.
Heading off to Le Grand Depart can always be a bit of an effort, its never as close as you want and its never going to be as easy london but you do get a chance to see other parts of the world on your way there. I had never been to holland before so i was a little excited to be visiting and taking the chance to drive up from france to Rotterdam and it really is true holland is almost flat, the biggest hill i went up was a motor way going over a river. Its no suprise that there was no king of the mountains jersey awarded till a couple of days in.
The friday was a baking hot day, the car showed 30 all the way up to Rotterdam so it looked like it was going to be a nice weekend in Holland so after getting only slightly lost getting into Rotterdam centre and then even more lost trying to find a policeman that would point me in the right direction i finally drove up a bike path (following a van) that had already done it and then made my way into the press centre car park.
The Press Centre was already busy with people given the lack of pre tour doping scandals i am not sure what they were doing, mainly watching the Holland world cup semi final game and drinking free beer.
Walking through the press centre is always and expereince and its takes a bit of memory, knowledge and facial regonition to avoid any fopars and chat with some famous/impresive people. By the time i left the press centre for dinner i had had a chat with Sean Kelly (kind of), met an Olymipic Womens road race champion Kathy Watt - which didn't exaclty go to plan after introducing herself and then pronoucing she was an Olympic champ an awkward silence was followed by the words "good effort", oh well i can't be eloquent the whole time.
I also met ITV Sports presenter Jill Douglas, very nice lady and really enthusiastic to be at Le tour.
Finally with all the wandering done it was time to get some food and head off to a hotel, went out with some friends to a suburb of Rotterdam and had a fantastic Calzone Pizza before heading to the other sie of Rotterdam to my Hotel.
Usually while traveling round france its the cheap chain hotels which are the easiest to get into but holland was a little different so i was going a little rustique. I drove past the traditional Windmills to a little part of the Town of Gouda (where the Cheese of the same name comes from) to quite a nice little hotel - Hotel Over De Brug. The only drawbacks were it was a little far out and the stairs to the room we so steep i needed a climbing harness to get to the top.