Dijon Deja Vu

Day 46 - Thursday - July 28
Moving on day. After a week of staying in one spot it took awhile to get packed.

It took a half hour to get everything down stairs. The hallway was a little crowded as someone was moving out and there were piles of boxes at the entrance.

First we headed back to the Pont du Arts for a daylight picture of our lock.

We recruited another visitor to get one more picture in front of Notre Dame, with our bikes this time.

Then we joined the morning commute to the train station, following this bike path the whole way there. It was a lot easier than the way we had gone a week ago!

It is so nice that they put the bike lights at eye level.

The Gare de Lyon one more time, just as busy as ever.

Back in the Dijon train station where we started the little side trip to Paris. This new train should be a popular route.

We took refuge from the rain in a Subway sandwich shop across from the train station . That gave us a chance to figure a better way through the construction to our hotel.

Time to catch up on bike maintenance. We are back at the Hotel Thurot.

This little guy shows the route of a walking tour of the town.

Eiffel got around too!

Earlier, Donna had seen an poster at the market by the hotel for a post-Tour de France pro bike race to be held in the evening. This fountain marks one end of the race route. They were going to do 40 laps down the boulevard and back.

We had no trouble getting a front row seat at this race.

These kids had raced earlier in the evening.

French racer Jeremy Roy was a crowd favorite. He took a lot of time signing autographs during his warm-up laps. He came in 2nd in the race.

And they're off!

There must have been at least 6 photojournalists covering this race.

There was quite the crowd out to watch as well.

The rider on the left is Pierre Roland, also a crowd favorite. He had just won Best Young Rider at the Tour de France. He also won a mountain stage beating Alberto Contador, last year's yellow jersey winner and climber par excellence.

These plastic blow-up clappers were handed out prior to the race and were our sound of the day.

It was getting a little dark for pictures and they still had 10 laps to go. 

It was a beautiful evening for the walk back to the hotel.

The poster that caught our attention. Tomorrow our own Tour starts again.