Day Two

I began the day with the bicycling film, "May I Kill U," sacrificing the day's two Competition films, which overlapped their morning screening. I did make an attempt on the 8:30 screening of Ozon's "Young and Beautiful," since it would let out at ten, just as the bicycling film started, but no one in the line for those without Invitations was let in. They were all funneled over to the 60th Anniversary Theater for the nine a.m. screening, which was too late for me. It will have to wait to Day Three or the end of the festival.

The bicyclist in "May I Kill U" is a vigilante London bicycle cop fed up with criminal behavior. He becomes a serial killer executing repeat offenders who incur his wrath. His first victim is a thief who earlier knocked him off his bike and caused him injury. He seeks him out, catching him with an armload of stolen goods. The criminal says he would rather die than go back to prison. So the cop asks him, "May I kill you." When the guy says "yes," he bashes him over the head with the big screen television that was among his stolen goods. His next victim is a domestic abuser. He warns him never to do it again. When he happens upon him again accompanied by his wife with another black eye, he takes him off and forces him into a dumpster and strangles him.

He ranges about on his bicycle, sometimes with a woman cop. She invites him to accompany her on a bike tour to Africa. He refuses at first, but then thinks he might do it. That's before he takes in a Bulgarian prostitute he rescues after killing her two pimps and releasing half a dozen other women they are holding to sell in prostitution, all confined to the back of a van. Not all his victims are hard criminals. He tells an elderly woman, who he catches shop-lifting chocolate, that he must execute her because he knows she has been a life-long shop-lifter with several convictions. His vigilantism becomes head-line news. His partner begins to suspect him, leading to a dramatic conclusion.

This wasn't my only satirical comedy on the times for the day. The other was a mockumentary, "The Conspiracy," an American film. Two young film-makers start making a documentary about a semi-crazed conspiracy theorist who takes to the streets with a bull-horn spouting his theories. As with the bicycle cop, he spends a lot of time on the Internet doing research. When he disappears without a trace a month after the film-makers became involved with him, they fear he's gotten too close to the truth with his research. They continue their project and suspect they are being stalked by a guy on a cool racing bike as was the initial subject of their documentary. Though this was no more far-fetched than the vigilante movie, it was more farcical than credible.

A legitimate documentary on Pussy Riot, "Pussy Riot--A Punk Prayer," was another commentary on the times. This well-polished effort had remarkable footage of the handful of performances the assorted women involved with Pussy Riot gave, as well as remarkable courtroom footage and interviews with the three women who end up being sentenced to two years in prison for their thirty-second outburst in a Moscow cathedral. Pussy Riot is more a feminist movement than an actual punk band. They only had five performances, all unannounced in a public space that they had someone video to put on the Internet. One was in a beauty parlor, another on the roof of a building near a prison. There were actually five women with colorful baklavas over their heads, the movement's trademark, who participated in the cathedral performance, but the authorities were only able to track down three of them. At other performances there were as many as eight of these women all hiding their identity. As much as wishing to empower women, Pussy Riot aimed to reveal the repressive nature of the Russian state. Their trial and the public reaction of outrage shows how extreme it is. The three women are repeatedly put on display in a cage for photographers. They smile and smirk at all the attention they have brought to their cause.

"Exposed" also focused on people who thrive on attention. This documentary on a handful of men and women who like to get naked on stage could have been called "Exhibitionists." The director Beth B certainly had no trouble getting them to agree to be filmed and to talk about themselves. That is their life. They considered their craft burlesque, not strip tease. A more interesting documentary might have been made about people who are drawn to watch such performances. This was less titilating than perplexing.

"Tale of a Forest," a Finnish documentary, was a necessary, soothing antidote to all these films on outrageous behavior. At last an opportunity to sit back and relax and be transported to the nature,al world, complete with gurgling streams, chirping birds, foraging bears, wandering elk and insects of all sorts. The film was complemented with relaxing music and an even-voiced English narration extolling the virtues of the forest.

Along with all the day's fringe cinema, five films worth, my day was highlighted by a pair of high-quality films that would please any cinephile--David Gordon Green's "Prince Avalanche," which played in Competition at Berlin this past January, and "Fruitville Station," a Sundance award-winner also this January.

Green's character-driven drama starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch painting yellow lines down the middle of a road in isolated rural Texas was the lone movie of the day with a pregnancy issue, down from yesterday's three such movies. Hirsch returns from his weekend in s sour mood. Rudd finally gets him to confess that it is because he just learned that a 46-year old woman he had slept with just a couple times told him she was pregnant with his baby. That is just one of many plot strands in this most engaging of films.

"Fruitville Station" is also rich in realistic characters and dialogue. It is the true story of the accidental killing of a young black man by a police officer on New Year's Eve on a Bart Station platform in the Bay Area in 2008. The victim had served time for dealing drugs but was trying to straighten out his life. He is portrayed way more sympathetically than necessary, but that the young director Ryan Coogler, who introduced the film to the Un Certain Regard audience, grew up in the area and intimately knew his material. The Weinstein Company will make sure this film gets seen by many, as it deserves to.

Getting in line an hour ahead of time wasn't early enough to see Sophia Coopola's Opening Night film for Un Certain Regard. The complaints that it should have been in Competition by those who hadn't even seen it seem unjustified by its the tepid response it received from the critics.

Once again I biked back to the campground in a misty drizzle, after biking in to start the day in an even harder rain. I wore shorts on the way in and changed into long pants. Lucky I wasn't wearing the long pants as I might have torn them when I took a spill when I turned to go up on the sidewalks as I neared the Palais and was caught by traffic. I didn't realize there was s bit of a curb hidden by a puddle of warm. It was my first fall in quite some time. Fortunately no damage.

Day One

Registration in the market is up ten per cent this year. That may have contributed to my having to settle for my second and third choices of movies I wished to see in my first two time slots of Cannes 2013. There were more than a hundred of us hoping to get into the 73-seat Palais screening room for Paul Schrader's "The Canyons" with Lindsay Logan and Gus Van Sant. It was easily the movie to see in the opening ten a.m. time slot with only two other choices, one a horror movie and the other an animated feature about Africa. Tomorrow there will be nearly fifty choices per time slot, but not on this first day while people are still gathering.

Arriving fifteen minutes early wasn't early enough, so I was among those turned away. I was slowed down by the new ultra strict policy about what one can bring into the huge Palais complex with its twenty screening rooms and hundreds of market booths. My tire irons, which I carry at all times in case I have a flat tire, raised the concerns of the man perusing the contents of my pack. I had to plead my case with two supervisors before I was allowed to bring them in. Water bottles too were not being allowed in, though it was rather artbitray depending upon on how thorough one's bag was being checked. This guy let mine in, but not the next.

Three times during the day I had to pass through the checkpoint with six lines and six checkers. Another time I was told I couldn't bring in my cheese sandwiches and can of ravioli. I left the ravioli on a water bottle cage on my bike and simply stuffed the sandwiches into the pockets of my vest. The ravioli was still on my bike when I returned to it four hours later. The third time I entered, the check had been somewhat relaxed and hopefully will continue so. If not that may effect my choice of movies.

The highly-sexed lifes of Africans was the predominant theme of the well-done animated feature "Aya of Yop City." It was one of three films of the six I saw today with a young woman becoming pregnant, leading to marriage. In this one the woman marries the nerdy bald son of a wealthy beer baron. When the baby looks nothing like the nerdy guy, but rather a suave unemployed guy with a full head of frizzy hair, the giveaway, the beer baron wishes to annul the marriage, which he wasn't all that enthusiastic about to begin with.

I had to settle for my third choice of films at noon, after I was turned away from "Crystal Fairy" about an American traveler in Chile and then denied entry to the Palais complex because of a bottle of chocolate milk in my bag preventing me from seeing the Italian film "About Face" concerning plastic surgery. All that was left was "The Starving Games" a spoof on "The Hunger Games," something I really didn't want to see. But since I felt obliged to see something, if only to monitor the many strands of cinema on offer, I begrudgingly subjected myself to it. The program said I only had 82 minutes of it to endure. It was actually 72 minutes and it was padded by several minutes of out takes that were no better than the film. It was a polished effort that may find an audience, though not on my recommendation. It was one of two films I saw today with an Internet reference--a no-good character in the movie is Mel Gibson's only Facebook friend.

The other Internet reference came in my next film, "The Gilded Cage." A French couple, whose son is going to marry a Portuguese woman he impregnated, goes to Wikipedia to read up on Portugal before going over to their apartment for dinner. The pregnancy is a minor strand in this story of a Portuguese couple who have served as the concierges in a Parisian condo complex for 32 years. They are well liked by everyone. They have just inherited the husband's brother's business in Portugal that will earn them 200,000 euros a year along with his chateau. They like Paris very much and aren't sure if they want to give up their life there, but if they wish the inheritance, they have to move back to Portugal. They have two weeks to make their decision. They wish to keep the inheritance a secret from all their relatives and friends in Paris, but they all know unbeknownst to them, and all to try to keep them in Paris. Along with a couple of nice shots of the Eiffel Tower, this was a pleasantly heartfelt portrayal of a very likable couple.

Next up was the film I was most interested in seeing this day, "Michael H.: Profession Director," a documentary on two-time Palm d'Or winner Michael Hanake. I feared a mob for this in the same screening room Schrader's film played in, but there were only about 25 of us who cared to see it. More than half the film is clips from just about all of Hanake's films. The notable exception was the remake of "Funny Games." There are quite a few clips, too, of shooting on the set of multiple takes of the same scene. Many of the clips were of slaps, including several attempts of a father slapping his son in "The White Ribbon." There is a dissertation to be made on the slaps of Hanake. There are also interviews with many of the actors who have worked with Hanake, all emphasizing what a kind and gentle man he is and an extreme perfection, all of which is evident too in the many interviews with Hanake in the film from throughout his career.

I followed this with another documentary,"Le Pouvir," by a filmmaker who had full trust and accessibility to his subject, this one the current president of France, Françoise Hollande. The film opens just after Hollande's election a year ago as he shows up at the French White House just a couple blocks from the Champs Ellysees where The Tour de France concludes. He is welcomed by the outgoing President Nicolas, who then drives off. There is extraordinary footage of Hollande in conference with his staff, mostly at his residence, but also on the Presidential plane and when he goes to New York to attend a conference. He is regularly consulting with his staff on speeches that he must give. When his staff discusses where he ought to appear on Bastille Day, July 14, I had hopes they'd also discuss his appearance at The Tour de France several days later near his home town in Tulle and also show it, but that was not to be. He's shown greeting staffers, shaking hands and kissing some women on the cheeks, but shaking hands of most.

I finished the day with an American feature, "Free Samples," playing in the 15-seat Grey 5 hotel screening room, the smallest of venues. I did not hold out much hope for it, but it was just one of two films to be seen in the final eight pm screening slot on this day's abbreviated schedule. From here on out there will be films screening to midnight and beyond. But this film of a feisty Stanford law school drop-out who likes to drink trying to decide what to do with her life had a veracity to it and a delightful cameo by Jesse Eisenberg. If I'd known he was going to be in it I might have made an effort to see "Touchy Feely" earlier in the day with Ellen Page, his "Juno" co-staf, playing a masseuse who develops an aversion to touching people. Eisenberg meets the law school drop-out at a bar then meets up with her the following day while she's doing a friend a monumental favor filling in for her operating an ice cream truck giving away free samples for the day. Eisenberg invites her out to dinner that night, which she's not sure she wants to accept, as she's separated from a boy friend she hasn't given up on. When she learns later in the day her boyfriend has taken up with another woman and gotten her pregnant and decides to marry her, she goes to the dinner and we are treated to another fine bit of acting by Eisenberg. The director is able to maintain interest through the whole movie with an array of offbeat characters who come by for the free ice cream.

I was greeted by a misty drizzle when I left the theater. I had a wind-breaker but not a rain coat for my four-mile bike ride back to the campground. Rather than the coastal route, I stayed inland, which wasn't quite as wet. The rain only managed to penetrate my arms, and not through my shirt and vest. It only marginally dampened a good first day of cinema.

Then I had the bonus of a Skpe call with Janina from the campground unisex washroom/shower complex. She had the exciting news that she will be treating her urban cinema class to "Medicine for Melancholy," a film by a Telluride friend I had introduced her to. I am sorry I can't sit in on it tomorrow at their final class to see their reaction and if they chuckle at all the right places.

Market Preview

Not all the big name directors are only to be found among the one hundred or so invited films to Cannes. There are some heavy weights with recent films among the more than thousand films in the market as well-John Sayles, David Lynch, Jean-Luc Godard, David Gordon Green, Paul Schraeder and Peter Greenaway. There are films featuring A-list actors and many actors that are on the downslide. But most exciting for me are five films about bicycling, the most in my ten years of attending Cannes.

The first screens tomorrow first thing in the morning, an English film that was in production during last year's festival and already had posters up promoting it featuring a crazed cyclist and the title "May I Kill U?," and the tag line, "A psychopath on the cycle path."

The next comes two days later, a German film, "The Famous Five." The five are a group of teens who go off on a bicycle tour. It has two screenings, unlike the psychopath film, and two of the others.

I will only have one chance to see "Allez Eddy!" a day later. This is a Belgian film about an enthusiastic eleven-year old cyclist. It is in the spirit of another Belgian feature from last year that paid homage to cycling deity Eddie Merckx.

Later that day I will have another cycling film, "Girl on a Bicycle," from Germany. It takes place in Paris, by far the most popular city in the films of the festival. I could see two or three a day if I made that my focus. A girl on a bike captures the attention of an Italian bus driver who is engaged to German.

The best of the five may be "Tour de Force," the story of a forty-year old who dreams of riding in The Tour de France. I'll have to use most my persuasive powers to see it as the program states it is only available to buyers. Press in particular are excluded. But I will have three chances to try, all in larger market theaters.

A strong theme of films in the market is the search for someone who has gone missing or a biological parent. There are also a few films about soldiers recovering from Afghanistan. There are at least five films about astronauts, the first on Day One with Christian Slater. One of the astronaut films is from Hungary. There are three films about being adrift at sea. "All is Lost" stars Robert Redford and plays out of competition, but not in the market, as are the other two. Patagonia is the subject of a few films, including a mountaineering documentary.

As always there is a wide array of documentaries. There are a couple on Inuits and two on Haiti, one by Haitian Raul Peck called "Fatal Assistance," questioning the aid process. Two recent phenomenoms, Linsanity and Pussy Riot are also the subject of documentaries. One that I have no interest in seeing is "On Tender Hooks," about the practice of piercing the body with meat hooks and suspending one's self.

There are plenty of horror films I will avoid as well, many described as people experiencing the most terrifying night of their life's. "Nothing is what it seems" is a common description of horror and non-horror films alike.

This year's Michael Madsen is Eric Roberts, with four films in the market. It may be the first time since "Reservoir Dogs" that their isn't a film with Madsen. John Cusack is in two quirky films, "Adult World" and "Grand Piano," playing a reclusive writer in one. Gerard Depardieu is also a rare absentee, though his female counterpart Catherine Deneuve turns up a couple times, one in the revival of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."

I will certainly have my work cut out for me to see all that I'd like to see. There are no shortage of screenings. There are 76 on day one, a whole festival worth for most festivals, but the least of any day of the festival until it winds down.


The crowds are gathering. Quite a few people already have their ladders and chairs staked out in front of the Palais where the limos drop the celebs off for their walk up the red carpet.

Draguignan, France

Draguignan was the last significant city I passed through on my way to Cannes. It is inland in rugged, semi-mountainous terrain. I had a final forty-five miles of up and down pedaling from there with a final descent from 1,100 feet to the Mediterranean. As in years past, I made my last wild campsite before two weeks of sanctioned camping at the summit of the pass off in the forest. I varied the final stretch of my route staying inland from Draguignan rather than dropping down to the coast as I usually do. That took me past the lone American military cemetery in the south of France.

It is less than a mile from Draguigan's city center, just beyond its official cemetery on Boulevard John F. Kennedy and across the street from the office of the town's cycling club. There was no missing the cemetery with two American flags fluttering high in the sky on poles flanking a huge sculpture of an angel. Though it gave me a small taste of home, there was no mistaking I was still in France with a "no dogs" sign on the grass beyond the entry. Dogs are welcome in so many places in France, including restaurants, those few places they aren't, let it be known. French Fidos and Fifis would certainly love to go romping on the immaculately manicured twelve acres of the cemetery, dodging its 861 headstones.

I was welcomed at the small visitor center by an extraordinarily vibrant English woman who gushed a stream of information. There was literally no holding her back as she recounted the history of the cemetery and WWII lore. She told me there are just twenty-four such American military cemeteries outside the US, scattered in fifteen countries, including the Philippines and Mexico. Only three countries have more than one. Italy and Belgium both have two, while France outdoes them all with eight.

Although American dead were first buried at the location of this cemetery when it was just an open field in 1944 after the initial Allied invasion from the Mediterranean in August of that year, it wasn't officially santioned as a military cemetery until 1956. A young French doctor chose the spot to bury the American dead. He is 99 and attended the last big ceremony at the cemetery on May 8 commemorating Europe Victory Day.

I could barely get in a question as the matron of the cemetery rattled on and on. At one point she paused for a breath and commented, "I love my job. When I go home at night, I say 'good night' to all the boys and when I arrive the next day I greet them with a 'good morning.'"

"So it's all men buried here?" I asked.

"No, there's one woman, an in-flight nurse who was killed when the plane she was flying in crashed. One could contribute on the battlefield with more than bullets. There were those who did it with Bibles or bandages, as she did. The average age of all those buried here is 22, but she was 26. When you walk around the cemetery, you'll notice that 24 of the graves are marked by Stars of David for the Jewish soldiers while all the rest have the Latin Cross. There are also two sets of brothers."

I don't think she would have stopped talking if her phone hadn't rung, allowing my to finally take a stroll out to the giant wall that listed all the dead and honored the unknowns and also contained a small chapel. It was a most tranquil setting.

The cemetery was quite a contrast to the bustling city center that had been taken over by its annual flea market--another of the great French passions. Every French town seems to have one. They are such a big event signs advertising a town's "vide-grenier" are posted weeks ahead of time. It gives everyone a chance to unload things they no longer need or to acquire items they think they do need. There is always a frenzied bustle surrounding them.

As I cycled past, I nearly collided with a husband and wife lugging an old well-used ornate fireplace grill. It could have been a valuable antique or something not much better than scrap metal. They were high-trailing it as if they feared the person who sold it to them realized he'd let it go for too cheap and might chase after them.

Others were at a near sprint rushing to the market before all the good deals were gone. It is hard not to stop and watch all the action and see all the clutter for sale. I have made purchases over the years, replacing a worn out shirt and also a spoon I inadvertently left with friends I was staying with. They are most definitely a wonderful window to the French.

It wasn't the only one I encountered in my ten-day 700-mile ride. At another in a smaller town a young man was passing out brochures with a photo of the French president Hollande standing in the rain looking very glum. I had been surprised to earlier see similar posters. I at first thought they were left over from the election exactly a year ago that put Hollande into office, but Yvon pointed out that they are being put up by the right-wing party that would like him replaced even though he has five years left in his term.

Once I descended to the coast I was greeted by a round-about decorated with sculptures of golfers, letting me know I had reached a tourist zone. A round-about in Draguignan served as a reminder with a sculpture of devastating floods in 2010 that left twenty- five dead. Some round-a bouts are just landscaped and others have a sculpture relating to something a region is known for, such as apples. They are another example of the French making their environment more pleasing and habitable.

And now I have twelve days of cinema from all over the world to immerse myself in. Whenever I have a doubt about which film to see, if one of my options is a French film, my decision will be made.

Newspaper story in "Le Berry Republicain" May 7

Le Berry Républicain



Passionné par le cyclisme, Georges Christensen est arrivé des États-Unis

Georges Christensen fait étape à Bruère, avec son ami français  (Caption to the photo of Yvon and  I in front of an obelisk marking the center of France in Bruere-Allichamps--hope to add later.  It can  be seen at
http://www.leberry.fr/cher/actualite/pays/boischaut/2013/05/08/passionne-par-le-cyclisme-georges-christensen-est-arrive-des-etats-unis-1543413.html


Georges Christensen, Américain, est de passage en France. Passionné par le cyclisme, il effectue actuellement son tour de France. Il a fait étape à Bruère-Allichamps.
Il parcourt vingt-cinq mille kilomètres à vélo chaque année. Georges Christensen, soixante-deux ans, est arrivé des États-Unis. Il fait partie de Chicago globe-trotter et a débarqué à Paris, vendredi.

Son challenge : rejoindre Cannes en vélo pour assister au festival, en empruntant la route du Tour de France. L'Américain a ainsi fait étape dans le Saint-Amandois, à Bruère-Allichamps, où il a été accueilli par son ami français, Yvon Mevel, qui parle très bien l'anglais.

À Saint-Amand
le 12 juillet pour l'arrivée du Tour
Après une nuit dans une chambre d'hôtes à Meillant, les deux amis ont pris la route pour la prochaine étape du tour. Yvon a accompagné Georges à Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule (Allier), ville départ d'étape du tour. Pour ses prochaines étapes, Georges Christensen dormira à la belle étoile. L'homme a pris l'habitude de camper depuis l'âge de vingt-six ans.

Le cycliste a été journaliste sportif, mais comme cela l'ennuyait et il a décidé de parcourir le monde. Il a vécu de petits boulots durant six mois et a économisé pour partir le reste de l'année. Il a ainsi visité pas moins de cent pays dont tous ceux de l'Europe et d'Amérique du Sud.

Lors de ses voyages Georges a rencontré bien des péripéties : une attaque à l'arme blanche en Afrique du sud, une guerre civile au Nicaragua, une tente dévastée par un ours au Canada.

Il vient en France chaque année depuis dix ans pour assister et voir le plus de films possible au festival de Cannes, et faire son tour de France. Car après quelques jours sur la Croisette, Georges se baladera en France, à vélo, pour se maintenir en forme.

En France, Georges allie ses deux passions : le cinéma et le vélo. Par ailleurs, avant son arrivée à Bruère, il s'est arrêté sur la tombe de Jean Robic à Wissous dans l'Essonne. Jean Robic était vainqueur du Tour de France en 1947.

Georges Christensen va rester plusieurs mois en France. Il sera de nouveau sur la route du Tour de France et à Saint-Amand, le 12 juillet. Après son séjour en France, cet homme passionné retournera aux États-Unis et donnera des conférences sur ses voyages dans les universités américaines.

And  the translation by Janina:

May 5, 2013


Bruère-Allichamps, France

Passionate about Cycling, George Christensen has arrived from the United States.

American cyclist George Christensen is traveling though France. Passionate about cycling, he is making his own tour of France. He has made a stage (the Tour de France is executed in stages or étapes which pass through different towns each year) in Bruère-Allichamps. The sixty-two year old cyclist travels 25 thousand kilometers on his bike each year. He left Chicago and arrived in Paris on Friday May 3.

His challenge: to return to Cannes on his bike, attend the festival—he is an ardent cinéfile—and then follow the route of the Tour de France. The American has already made one stage of the tour from Saint-Amandois to Bruère-Allichamps, where he was welcomed by his English-speaking French friend Yvon Mevel.

After a night in a bed and breakfast in Meillant, the two friends set out for the next stage of the Tour. Yvon accompanied George to Saint-Pourcain-sur-Sioule (Alllier) one of the towns from which the Tour de France will depart this year. For the following stages George will sleep under the stars—he has been camping since he was 26 years old.

Christensen began as a sports journalist, but soon decided to travel the world. He gets by with odd jobs and economizes for six months in order to spend the rest of the year traveling. In this way he has visited a hundred countries, mainly in Europe and South America.

During his journeys he has encountered many adventures: an attack in South Africa, civil war in Nicaragua and a tent destroyed by a bear in Canada.

He comes to France each year to see as many films as possible at Cannes and then make his tour of France. After is time on the Le Croisette—the road running along the seaside in Cannes— George will continue cycling around France in order to maintain his form.

George unites his two passions in France: the cinema and the bike. Moreover, before his arrival in Bruère, he visited the tomb of Jean Robic, winner of the Tour de France in 1947, in Wissous in l’Essonne.

George Christensen will stay several months in France, and begin the route of the Tour de France again at Saint-Armand on the 12th of July. After his stay in France this bike enthusiast, will return to the United States where he will give lectures on his travels.

Vaison-la-Romain, Ville Depart Stage 16

I left the tourist office in Saint-Amond-Montrond with a 24-page brochure of sites to see and food to eat and wines to drink in the province of Berry. Along with the UNESCO World Heritage cathedral in Bourges and several Loire Valley chateaus was the town of Sainte-Severe, where in 1947 Jacques Tati filmed "Jour de Fete," one of the most beloved of French films. I have seen this film of a bumbling bicycling postman many times, including last year here in France under a tent in the town of Gap as part of its weekend bicycle festival. I could see it again at Cannes, where it is being given a special presentation at its outdoor theater on the beach.

I had never thought to seek out the town where it had been filmed. I'd head directly there if it weren't on the opposite side of the province from where I was and the opposite direction in which I was headed. But I will have another opportunity next month after I complete scouting The Tour stages in Brittany and will be heading down to Corsica for The Tour start. Even as much of France as I have biked the past nine summers, new fascinating, must-see places keep turning up.

I don't have to worry about running out of first-time Tour Ville-Etapes either. Every year there are always a half dozen or more. Saint-Pourcain-sur-Sioule is one of this year's. It will be the departure city for the 14th stage that will finish in Lyon, the second largest city in France. The Tour is heavy this year with large cities, not something I particularly welcome. It also includes Marseille, the third largest city and of course Paris, its largest by far. Other large host cities are Nice, the sixth largest city, Montpellier, 15th, and Tours, 20th. I don't object at all to Tours, as that's where my friends Florence and Rachid live.

The terrain had been relatively flat the 200 miles from Paris to Saint-Amond, but then turned hilly, making the 58 mile transfer to Saint-Pourcain all the longer and painful to take. It's not likely I'll be riding ahead of the peloton on the stage to Lyon, but will rather have to take a short cut and duck down to the start of the next stage in Givors outside of Lyon.

Despite hosting The Tour for the first time, Saint-Poucain had done little in preparation for it unlike Saint-Amond. There were no banners or posters around town other than a tattered announcement of the June 15 ride of part of The Tour route that all the host cities will be offering. There was also a banner across from the tourist office where the peloton will commence the stage. Later the next day though in a small town I passed a bike sculpture in someone's front yard such as I would have expected In Saint-Pourcain. It was a mannequin dressed in a postal uniform astride a yellow postal bike, perhaps a tribute to Jacque Tati and "Jour de Fete."

Yellow is the prominent color of France and not only in July during The Tour de France. In the spring time in the northern half of the country there are acres and acres of bright yellow rape seed. Dandelions can also be seen all over, as well as occasional patches of daffodils and tulips and other flowers. Towns vie for as many stars as they can get as a Ville Flueri with their flower displays. During the summer months super bright yellow sunflowers take over the countryside.

I had some severe climbing from Saint-Pourcain to reach the Rhone valley and my next Ville Etape in Givors, just south of Lyons. I camped a couple miles up a long climb down an overgrown tractor trail beside a pasture of cattle. I began the next day with a 25-minute seven per cent climb, a good way to warm up in the cool temperatures. As I approached Givors a group of cyclists slowed for a chat. I told them I was in search of the starting point of the stage leaving Givors. They said to follow them, that it wasn't too far ahead. It was right along the Rhone, already marked. Also nearby was a round-about decorated with painted bicycles and a large wooden sign giving the details of the route. It will be one of the most dramatic and longest of The Race, 150 miles and finishing atop Mont Ventoux. It will be the eighth time a stage has finished atop Ventoux. The sign listed all eight winners. Also near the stage start was a Museum to the Resistance, another common site in France.

I followed the Rhone for 55 miles, a welcome spell of flat,and not too much traffic as it was a holiday. It was lined with orchards of fruit trees that would have made for easy camping. There were regular pull-offs with a picnic table or two. At one a couple in their fifties invited me to join them in their picnic. Though they had never done any touring, they had biked many of the legendary passes--Ventoux, the Galibier, the Col de Bonnette and more.

They were driving down to St. Tropez for the long holiday. I asked if they knew that Henri Desgrange, the founder of The Tour de France and its director for better than thirty years, was buried near there. They did not. I told them I had visited the grave of Jean Robic earlier in the trip. At that the wife turned to her husband and somewhat derisively said, "He knows more about The Tour de France than you do." Its not the first time I've heard a French woman tell her husband that, evidently not as enamored with The Tour as her husband and tired of listening to him go on and on about it as if he's its ultimate authority.

Realizing what a Tour-obsessed fanatic I was, the husband commented it would certainly be a "catastrophe" for me if The Tour were cancelled because of all the doping. He pronounced "catastrophe" the French style "ca-ta-strof." It is another of my many favorite things of France. It is a word that is commonly used in Tour de France broadcasts and daily life. "Quelle catastrophe," is a common French expression that always warms my heart, like "voila" and "alors."

"What about the dopage?" he asked.

"It has always been a part of the sport," I said. "It is very difficult and demanding. It has to be hard for the racers when they are trying as hard as they can to keep up and they can barely do it, to take caffeine and whatever else they can. A great many of the riders claim to have asthma so they can take asthma medication that opens up their lungs and makes them inhale more air and ride faster. There are all sorts of such quasi-legal tricks. One just has to overlook that part of the sport and appreciate what great athletes they are to begin with and the great effort they give and how beautiful the sport is."

I crossed the Rhone at the large city of Valence, as I was in need of a grocery store. There hadn't been an open one the day before, it being a holiday. As I meandered about the city, I happened upon a street named Henri Desgrange, as if I had been led to it. I couldn't have been more thrilled. One of the many charms of France are all the streets named for Hugo, Zola, Balzac, Baudelaire and others of the arts and those such as Desgrange who have brought honor to the country.


It was back into semi-mountainside terrain from Valence as I approached Mont Ventoux. I was also far enough south for vineyards to be taking over the countryside. It was also a region of picturesque villages attracting tourists and cyclists. I added a couple of small cols to my collection. At the top of one of them south of Dieulefit, a village packed with camera-toting tourists, a giant yellow bicycle was already in place to honor the peloton when it comes by in July.

I am writing from Vaison-la-Romain, an old Roman city with a 6,000 seat amphitheater, a 2,000 year old bridge and castle. It is teeming with tourists, many with bicycles, either to make an attempt on nearby Mont Ventoux or just to partake of the fine cycling around it. There will be even more cyclists come July when it will be the start of the stage after the Ventoux stage. It has hosted Tour stages before and is so much of a tourist town that it doesn't need to promote itself as a Ville Etape. It offered not a single Tour-related artifact for my camera.

My Annual Rendezvous With Yvon

Yvon may be well settled into his retirement, but he is still challenged to equitably distribute his unflagging boyish enthusiasm among his many interests--cycling, travel, table tennis, grandchildren, pétanque, friends, helping his girl friend with her farm, and arranging interviews. Lucky for me he had a couple spare days between a cycle tour out of Toulouse to the Pyrenees and attending the table tennis World Championships in Paris to be able to meet up with me on my ride from Paris to Cannes.

We rendezvoused in Bruere-Allichamps, two hundred miles into my ride and a two hundred mile drive for Yvon from where he is living in the Lot departement. It was a most appropriate spot, as it is one of several towns that claim to be the center of France. According to Graham Robb in his book "Discovering France," there are three such towns that consider themselves such based on different calculations. I visited them all a few years ago, but learned from the local reporter, who Yvon had lined up to interview me, as he does just about every year, that there are actually seven that make such a claim. The reporter said that the general consensus though is that Bruere-Allichamps is the center. There is an obelisk in the road, just a block from the bar where we were talking, marking the spot.

Yvon hadn't forewarned me that a reporter would meeting up with us, but it came as no surprise. French newspapers regularly run stories on bicyclists doing something out of the ordinary. Yvon feels he is doing his civic duty to alert the nearest large newspaper when we meet up to the presence of an American globe-trotting cyclist who has come to France to follow The Tour de France. This newspaper was "Le Berry Republicain," named for the province in the center of the country.

This was this first time we had been interviewed by a male, and he had a decidedly different slant than his female counterparts. He was interested in hard facts (how many miles I ride a day and a year, how I have earned a living over the years, the number of countries I have biked and so on) rather than the human interest questions women reporters have always asked (what foods I eat, what I like about France, my favorite countries). After twenty minutes of questions he posed us in front of the obelisk, then Yvon and I took to our bikes.

Yvon doesn't camp, so he had booked a room in a four-room bed-and-breakfast in a small town five miles away. It had an adjoining apple orchard where I could pitch my tent, though there were even more inviting forests all about. We had a picnic-style dinner of cassoulet, couscous, ravioli, cheese and home-made pâté from Yvon's girl friend. I also provided a bottle of wine from my Air France flight. Yvon didn't object at all that it was in a plastic bottle.

Yvon wondered what the American reaction had been to the Armstrong doping confession. I said most Americans don't understand the culture of the sport, so were quite appalled. Yvon said the French weren't so angry at Armstrong, but rather at the authorities who never caught him. Some of the most revered French cyclists have served drug suspensions and remain high profile figures in the sport as commentators and coaches. But Yvon admitted his interest in the sport has waned. He hardly watches it on television any more. Rather than watching two hours of a race, he'll just watch the last fifteen minutes, other than Paris-Roubaix, as he has a special relationship with it having ridden a sportif of it with thousands of others. But he brightened considerably saying that none of this has dimmed his or the French enthusiasm for The Tour de France. It is too much a part of the national fiber of the French.

We talked more about table tennis than cycling. It has taken over Yvon's life more than anything. He recently finished second in the Masters category in his departement, the equivalent of American states. He coaches his town's team and is in regular demand for play. He never knows when his phone will ring with someone asking for a match. He is often invited to come down to the police department to play, something he is always happy to do, lessening his concern about being ticketed for running a red light.

He also teaches table tennis at the local school on "Leisure Wednesday," when the teachers have the day off and the students can engage in pleasure activities, including going to the local cinema. There are ten students interested in table tennis, equally divided between boys and girls. The girls are particularly adept at being light on their feet, as Yvon compares the footwork he teaches to dance. And he hopped up from the table to demonstrate for me, gracefully gliding from side to side.

He is excited about attending the World Championships in Paris later this month. The top French player is ranked 27th in the world. He's hoping he will bring him the same good luck he brought the only French player to win the single's Championship in 1992 in Sweden when he was in attendance. Yvon was also there at the World Championships the only other time the French won, a mixed doubles team in 1988 in England. The Americans are no threat he said. They have never been very good, and the World Championships have never been played there. The French are strong, but the Germans are even better. It is second to soccer as their most popular sport.

After dinner we took a stroll around town. We were the only ones out on the unseasonably cool night. As all French towns, there was a monument to the WWI dead in the center of town. Yvon pointed out something I had never noticed before, a paragraph from DeGaulle's radio address to the French people from London on June 18, 1940 not to give in to the Germans, launching and encouraging the Resistance movement. June 18 is not a French holiday, as the country already has plenty of holidays, including three in May, but the day is commemorated by veterans taking wreaths to cemeteries and such monuments.

The next morning Yvon accompanied for three hours before circling back to the bed-and-breakfast for his car and his drive home. Our first destination was Saint Amond-Montrand, the arrival city for the 12th stage of The Tour. The tourist office didn't have any brochures yet on all the activities the town would be offering, but the woman at the desk did provide us with a map of the peloton's route into the city and where the finish line would be, by a pyramid-shaped building that is the town's defining feature and serves as an artist's center. That explained the many sculptures we had seen around town and in its round-abouts. She directed us to a round-about the peloton would pass where there was a floral display of a bicycle and also a count-down until the day The Tour would come to town. It was at 67. Many towns hosting The Tour offer such a feature, illustrating their great anticipation.

Yvon and I biked over to the newspaper office, so I would be able to easily find it when I returned in 67 days, as the reporter said he would like to interview me again about my experience following The Tour. A block from the newspaper office we saw a shop window full of Tour memorabilia for sale. It was the official Tour office, unfortunately closed, as it was a Monday, a day when most businesses in smaller French cities are closed, making up for being open on Saturday. That also prevented me from purchasing a SIM card for my iPad, allowing me to access the Internet whenever I wanted and not having to rely on WIFI, which I hadn't been able to find in two days. In the window of The Tour office was a notice saying that June 15 was Fete du Tour day in honor of the 100th Tour, announcing that each of the Ville Etapes would be hosting a ride of part of the stage that was either starting or finishing in that town. That was big news and something I will have to try to take advantage of. That is two weeks before The Tour starts, so I could be scouting the Alps or the time trial stage near Gap that day.

On our way out to the count-down round-about we passed a crew planting flowers in another roundabout, also bicycle-themed. Yvon is quick to have a conversation with anyone. One of the workers said their biggest project was to make a one hundred foot by one hundred foot flower bed in the shape of a heart near the finish line with the town name and Tour de France in the center for the cameramen in helicopters to televise across the world. Yvon and I could see its outline when we went out there. Also nearby was a street named for The Tour de France. Saint Amand has served The Tour as a Ville Etape twice before. The last was in 2011, when the street, which served as the finish line then, was renamed. The French show their love for The Tour a thousand and one, or maybe a million and one ways. This is one of them.

We began together the nearly sixty mile transfer to the start of the next stage in Saint-Pourcain-sur-Siole, one of five stage cities in this year's Tour named for saints. I had just learned from the book I was reading, "The Identity of France," by Fernand Braudel, that few cities in the north of France have saint names as that practice didn't start until after the year 1000 when most of the towns in the north were already established. But there are still hundreds of such saint towns.

As always, my time with Yvon was too short, but still most satisfying and enriching. But it is never too painful to say au revoir because we know when we mete again we will easily resume where we left offs as if it we the day before. I have much that I can be thankful for. Having friends such as Yvon is high on the list.