ce anything official until we'd received final confirmation from our partner hotels. Mission accomplished.I hope that my previous blogs have given readers an insight into how we plan our Tour de France tours. Before working in travel/tourism, I thought that trip planning was easy. Family travel is usually handled by mom, and all mothers know that choosing hotels, restaurants, and daily activities for a family is very difficult. Men don't normally take on such responsibilities and what we don't know, we wrongly assume is easy. It's a bit like a barbecue. Usually Mrs. X invites everyone over, shops, sets the table, marinates the meat, and makes everything from the salad to dessert. Mr. X barbecues a few slabs of meat for 20-30 minutes and yet he receives a standing ovation upon presenting the charred flesh. My mom always planned our trips so I had no idea how much work it took.
Tour de France cycling trips are particularly complex because you have to balance riders, non-riders, road closures, transfers, luggage, bikes, and often trains. Normally it takes me between 7-10 days to initially pre-trip a tour and another 2-3 months finalize everything before sale. With that in mind, I am thrilled to present our latest addition to the Spyns Tour de France roster: trip #3. The tour is similar to our sold out luxury and classic trips. It will include the final four stages (16; 17; 19; and 20). The trip will start in the Pyrenees, swing through Bordeaux and finish in Paris. The start/finish are the similar to our previous tours but I decided to shake things up a bit for the Bordeaux portion of our trip.
In the past, I've assiduously avoided staying in large cities before heading to Paris for the finish. But Bordeaux beckoned simply because it will host both a finish (July 23) and time trial (July 24). I've run a number of trips through Bordeaux but always outside of the city. I started hunting around for a nice hotel and found the Hotel Regent Grand. I wasn't that excited about staying there until I saw it. The hotel is truly spectacular. In fact, its rooms, decor, and even the flowers resemble the Four Seasons George V in Paris - probably the best (and most expensive) hotel on the planet. I visit on average 50 to 60 hotels a year and the Regent was my best recent find for several reasons. First the staff were young, fun, and accommodating. French service can be a little, ahem, cold, so it was nice touring a hotel where everyone seemed to enjoy working there. Second, the rooms were spectacular. And third, the group reservations staff were beyond accommodating. When I asked whether they had an English satellite TV station (I suggested Eurosport), they immediately checked, confirmed they didn't and called their company right in front of me to ensure we'd have it. That's service. I immediately booked our rooms.
I've also added a little more adventure to the non-riding activities. For example, when in the Pyrenees, the non-riders will go canyoning. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it includes wearing a weatsuit, rappelling down (like a SWAT team scaling a building from top-down) a valley into a river, and slip sliding through rocks, waterfalls etc. This adventurous yet safe activity will hopefully keep our non-riders both happy and wet.
In closing, I love trying new things so hopefully this new trip will prove popular. For more information about our company or tours, please call 1.888.825.4720 visit http://www.tdf-tours.com/ or email info@tdf-tours.com.
