Tour de France- Ken Variant; Stage 1- Philadelphia Tarmac

 The Tour de France is a grueling race and the Ken Variant thereof, while different in some details, requires essentially the same degree of stamina and determination.  Like the traditional, if somewhat staid, TdF, the Ken Variant has different stages with some shuttles and rest days in between arduous bike riding, walking about and general touring.  

To get to France, on my own nickel no less, I had to fly to Philadelpia which recalled my Venice/Dolomite trip of yore with my son in law, Clay, where spent 45 minutes on the ground at Philly waiting for a gate.  Evidently, this has become standard fare in Philly, where we had to wait over an hour on the tarmac for a gate- all dressed up but nowhere to go as it were.  So, they let fly into Philadelphia, you just can't get off the plane.   Just as they were issuing sleeping bags and mess kits, we somehow broke through Philly's defenses and got to the gate.  The stampede getting off would have made a good Rawhide episode, as I barely avoided getting trampled.  

Got to Paris where a TdF van (Eurocar) was waiting to take me to Rouen in Normandie and the 1st stage, after payment of the rental fee/deposit, etc, etc.  One the way, stopped at this  boulangerie where I got my first taste of French food and ambiance-

You could get right next to the road action with that one chair.  

The next stage- 1.5 days of strenuous walking about Rouen with only the occasional ice cream or pastry- featured some magnificent medieval gothic churches-

Talk about flamboyant Gothic!

It is truly hard to appreciate how awe inspiring these churches are, both inside and out without seeing them in person.  Some are just enormous.   Hard to imagine them building them 800+ years ago, but they did.

And for fans of the French-English or English-French, depending on your point of view, there was the tomb of Richard The Lion Hearted (died 1199) in the Cathedral-

Rouen is justly famous for its array of half timber houses of which many hundreds survive from the middle and later ages- 

If the house's 2nd floor is cantilevered out, it was built before 1520.  

 The French do have some thought provoking street names, perhaps carried over from the French Revolution-

But due to the constant riots, there was virtually no one in site as only the bravest dared to venture out-

And there was little to see or tempt one to eat due to the shops being boarded up-

I did manage to visit the Museum of Fine Arts here where they have an excellent display of Impressionist paintings, including some by Monet, Renoir and other famous painters-

But, I don't know, maybe I am getting old, but most of it looked kind of...blurry to me, like art had definitely declined since the Rennaisance.  Not to worry, though, digital photography has made those guys aushdemode, as one might say.