Paris

Since we were only a 3-hour flight away, going to Paris to see the finish of the Tour de France seemed like a neat idea. We were only able to spend 3 days there though, since I was going to Moscow right afterwards, but we managed to do lots of sightseeing, and also watched the race on the Champs Elysees. I am only including here the pictures I particularly liked, and not the obligatory "me-in-front-of-X" snaphots, otherwise this page would be really long.

	Of course, the first thing we did was climb the Eiffel Tower. The weather was a little hazy, but still the views were great.
	Closeup views of the struts that make up the tower, and one of the legs. Check out all the rivets.

	There are stairs leading up to the second "level" of the tower, and after that they take you up and down in elevators like this one.
	Sacre Coeur. Our hotel was in Monmartre, half hour walk from this church.
	View of the roofs on Paris from the top of Sacre Coeur. I was impressed by the number of chimneys.

Kostadis really wanted to eat lunch at this cafe.

	Food-wise we were doing rather well. Kostadis was in cheese-heaven.
	The only problem was deciding which cheese to buy... That took awhile.
	I was more impressed by the great pastries. The raspberry tart was absolutely incredible.

Tour de France

Sunday, July 29th we arrived at Champs Elysees about 3 hours before the actual race was arriving in order to stake out a place from which we can see the action. By the time the race arrived there were people lining the road 5-6 deep, so it's a good thing we got there early.

	Before the cyclists arrive, there is a caravan of sponsors's cars with all sorts of wacky contraptions on top.
	The race makes 10 laps around the Champs Elysees. Tradition dictates that the team posessing the yellow jersey leads the peloton into Paris and around the first lap. Go Posties!
	After that, the real race begins.
	After the race is over and the winners are awarded their prizes, all the teams do a victory lap. Here are the Posties again.
	This is Team Telekom. Jan Ullrich (white jersey with German flag) was second again. Behind him is Erik Zabel, who got his 6th green jersey.
	Luarent Jalabert was the king of the mountains (polka-dot jersey).

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ngelfand@cs.stanford.edu

Last modified: Wed May 22 17:58:26 PDT 2002