The drive on Wednesday to Thursday’s mountain finish wasn’t too far – the GPS told us to leave the road we were on a little sooner that I expected but we were headed in the right direction so we kept going.
After several km we came to the village of Paraisas where the road turned into a bit of a goat track more suitable for mountain biking.
We were sure that the race couldn’t be coming through here but some locals told us that the village of Cova was indeed ahead and so we continued on. We joined the proper road only a few miles further and knew we were now on the route.
The turnoff up the final climb was, for once, well marked as it’s a local ski and hiking destination. We drove all the way to the top and were pleased to see a very large paved parking area – perfect for the team buses and tv crews, etc.
Not wanting to be right at the top we went back down a couple of km and pulled into what looked like a perfect spot with lots of room and separated from the road by a metal barrier. There was one other vehicle there at the time that turned out to be a family of hikers who ate lunch then left.
We had a nice relaxed afternoon until a moto cop knocked on our door and told us we had to leave. He said we could go towards the top of the climb, then take the road to the right. We could park there and take the chairlift down in the morning to watch the race. We weren’t that keen on the idea but did go partway up before turning back, as did several other campervans.
We ended up backing onto the edge of a small dirt side road where we parked for the night. We were joined by another campervan and by the next morning a few cars as well. I still like seeing the younger fan riders making their way along a route…
By later afternoon the whole lane was swamped with cars as was the main road – we all agreed that the organizers were stupid!
So many excellent places for campervans and cars to park and they banned us from them all.
They erected a banner just below us showing that we were 2 km from the finish and a cute little boy wrote in chalk ‘Mate’ several times in front of the entrance to our lane.
By 5:00 some of our neighbours were pouring wine down their throats from a wine skin – they did of course offer me some (I did, after all, have the rah-rah skirt on).
I wasn’t as proficient at the pouring as they were, but perhaps with practise…
The entrance to our lane was eventually blocked completely by a police car, which was ok as I don’t think anyone else could have squished in.
The first racer arrived just before 6:00…
…with the main bunch about six or seven minutes later.
A few minutes after that I saw the Canadian champion’s jersey of Michael Woods coming so I quickly took one (slightly crappy) shot of him and for one very rare moment let my camera go and screamed ‘Michael Woods – go Canada!’. He actually looked my way and smiled as he went by.
Shortly after the race had passed we were one of the first ones back out on the road, passing by all of the team busses that were parked in all of the nice wide pullouts on the hill. Very strange that they weren’t at the top where there was so much room.
We drove towards Ponferrada and stopped in a large parking area just off the secondary road we were on – much quieter that a couple of nights ago!
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 