Tour de Paris

I successfully convinced both Ann and Tommy to go on the Fat Tire Bike Tour. I’ve done very similar tours in Munich, Amsterdam and Berlin. They were all great and absolutely my favorite way to see any city. The tour guides are a little irreverent and make even the history lessons fun and interesting. Most are American or Canadian…so they are easy to understand too!

On the way over, I found a cute little “French” Bulldog wobbling through the park and stopped to get a doggie pic!
We also grabbed a couple of pics on this gorgeous day with the Tour d’Eiffel in the background. This time I turned Ann into the unicorn!!
We met the guide, Crystal, at 11:00 at the Eiffel Tour. She happened to be from Austin! Yea! There were about 20 of us on the trip to bike around Paris. We saw a ton of sites before lunch including, the Ecole Militaire (Military School), the new and very modern peace monument, Napolean’s tomb, Rodan’s museum, Les Invalides (the Pope was going to be in the adjacent plaza that Friday!), and the Place de la Concorde…where an Egyption monument now stands. This was on the site where many of the French beheadings by guillotine happened.
At the final stop before lunch, we saw the fancy Hotel de Crillon. One of the perks of winning the Tour de France, the 1st place rider gets to fly their country’s flag on top of this posh hotel. The first year Lance won, he flew the Texas flag instead!!! Wohooo! It started as a joke, then just stuck…he ended up flying it year after year as he took the top slot! I had also seen on CNN that morning that he was re joining the ride next year. This time dedicated to cancer research. We’ll see if he flies the TX flag or a yellow one for cancer research.
We then went on to the park next to the Louvre to have lunch. We sat with a mom and daughter, originally from the Midwest. The daughter was now working for the WB in LA. They were fun to chat with and really nice. The table next to us saved their bread and fed it to this little pigeon we named Scrappy. My crepe just wasn’t as exciting as the baguette!
After lunch, we rode past The Louvre and Seine River, back by the Eiffel Tower, then returned to the bike shop. It started to drizzle right as we returned, so everything worked out perfectly!
The bikes all had names, so I had to snap a photo of this one! :)
After we walked back to the hotel, Ann and I threw our things down so we could make a little time to stop by Notre Dame before the groups that evening. Ann jumped into this Self portrait!!! Haha!

It was a beautiful church…and we were even there during a mass.
On the way back to the focus group location, I saw this and it just made me laugh. I think that person was a little confused. Shouldn’t "go" be the happy face? Maybe it’s French pop art that I just don’t understand!
After the groups that night, we went to grab a drink at Chez Prune with our awesome moderator for the groups, Samuel, and enjoyed the French wine and beer! :)