Le Tour Weekend (Part 1)



A trip to Paris for the final stage of Le Tour is now firmly part of my annual calendar, so much so in fact that the day itself has stretched to four beginning with the journey out to Paris on the Thursday afternoon/evening and returning on the Monday morning.


Well they say that good and bad luck comes in threes so the trip begins with three small annoyances. Firstly, a combination of cut-backs and my misunderstanding leads to me buying the wrong ticket from the machine at the station, something I only realise when I am on the train and a £10 return quickly becomes a £21 return! Secondly, having booked the holiday as a package through a well known website I am not aware that I should be paying extra for a my suitcase to go in the hold (my camera bag is hand luggage), this little oversight by the company in question costs be £36. Thirdly the plane is delayed due to problems in France with refuelling.


Whilst waiting in the departure lounge two things strike me that will be of no comfort whatsoever to anybody who is a slightly nervous flyer. From the viewing lounge at Southampton Airport you can watch the comings and goings but there on the other side of the airport is the unmistakable image, a wrecked aircraft and a burned out building, obviously they are for the emergency services to practice on but for anybody seated on the left hand side of an aircraft they are the last thing you see as the plane takes off over the M27. Secondly a family of ten from Pakistan have somehow managed to get into the departure lounge without having their bags checked or the female in the party having her face checked against her passport. Now I could leave the word Pakistan out of the sentence but it's important given recent events to consider for a moment how bizarre this is. The attendant at the departure gate explains that she will have to take the veiled woman away for physical confirmation against her passport photograph and that somebody will be along soon to check the bags - that doesn't happen.


I feel guilty about thinking the worse, the same way I felt guilty after 9/11 when I see a group of Muslim men behaving suspiciously around a Ford Transit at Cherbourg. As Simon Bates once said, "we all become fascists as we grow older," and I worry that the Liberal Socialist in me is being replaced by a right-wing racist.


The pilot explains the reasons for the delay and says that due to a following wind he hopes we can make up the time, he also adds that we will try and take some shortcuts. Well that's encouraging, there's me thinking we were going to take a direct route from Southampton to CDG and all the while he was going via Mallorca for some sightseeing!


We arrive in Paris. Looking at the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse Tower and Le Defense as we turn right to line-up the runway makes me smile. The landing is both great and slightly surreal, this is because the runway doesn't go straight it curves and for about five seconds it's as if the plane is in a cartoon, hurrying around a bend on one wheel. We are then stuck behind one of the new A380 planes and can't reach our berth (or whatever it's called), the A380 is huge, so huge that it blocks out the sun.


The delays on take-off and landing mean that the luggage comes through at 9:01, my bus left at 9:00 - but hey I'm in Paris (or not too far away). When the bus does arrive I meet one of those annoying inconsiderate people who usually inhabit the 10 items or less checkout in the supermarket. This stupid woman insists on sitting in an aisle seat with her rucksack over her shoulder so that anybody trying to pass her (she is sat in the first four rows) gets hit in the gonads.


I arrive at my hotel at 10:10 and the day is complete when I discover that not only do I not have any mobile phone reception but that the phone in my room doesn't work. Still, at least I'm here.