Rotterdam

Tour de France - Le Grand Départ

Separated at birth - Hans & Miche...

We arrived in Rotterdam in time to watch Holland beat Brazil 2-1 in the World Cup quarter final.  On top of that it was over 35 degrees, so it's fair to say there was a hot, celebratory air around the town. So much so, that people were jumping into the docks after each goal and for a couple of hours after the game.

   2:1   

He's hard to make out against the background of the other people, but there's a guy 3 quarters across in this photo that has just launched himself in a swallow dive...

 

La Chouffe...

Prologue course map... we watched from the Boompjes at the top of the course on this map, 5KM from the finish (just before halfway)...

There was a very long wait and plenty of jockeying for position to get a good spot to watch from...

The various sponsors in their floats came around about 2 hours before the riders...

Each of the 198 riders had a police outrider...

After 4 hours, a warming plate of warming bitterballen & mustard and a beer or two, we changed our position to watch the higher ranked riders (well those that hadn't changed their alloted places - Bradley Wiggins sneaked up on us and was past us practically before we realised).

2008 Tour winner Carlos Sastre...

Erasmusbrug (Erasmus Bridge). The building on the far left had a clever moving cyclist effect in lights...

 

Unfortunately the same big yellow head got in the way on most of the shots.. here Belgium's Jurgen Van den Broeck cycles close by..

Nicholas Roche...

Ivan Basso...

The top three from last year's Tour had a pair of outriders...

2009 Tour winner Alberto Contador...

Miche in the hotel foyer...

Hans...

Map of Stage 1... we were lucky as it turned out that it came right past our hotel... we had no idea when we booked the hotel back in January so it saved us trying to find a vantage point elsewhere...

Instead, here are the team cars that follow the riders...

They're not against a little crazy overtaking when the mood takes them...

The Tour's passed and the carnival moves on; Miche outside the hotel before we leave for home...

A controversial statue in Rotterdam, people claim that it's a dwarf with a butt plug and it has had to be re-located a number of times due to complaints by residents... Officially it's called 'Santa Claus' and it's holding a Christmas Tree, unofficially it's called the 'Buttplug Gnome'...