another country!!!

I am still traveling with adventure travel group. They are the group that I'm riding and watching the tour de France with. We are staying in a cool little dutch run hotel right in the middle of the alps. It is beautiful beyond description! I really love the alps and I would love to be able to come back and ski here. I am really looking forward to being able to hike through the alps in Switzerland.
Yesterday we had our first chance to see the tour live. We got a ride in the tour van up a pretty big climb before we started ridding we rode about  25 miles before the French police started to give us a hard time. They where trying to reduce some of the traffic before the tour came through. They made everyone get off their bikes and they did not w2ant anyone passing through, but I needed another country! Me and another guy from the travel group where able to sneak to this tunnel that came out it Italy. The Italian police didn't want us to leave after we got their. We took some pic's of the Italian flag, signs, and police men, then we hung out and waited for the tour. about an hour before the riders come through their is a big caravan of sponsor cars that come through. They look so crazy their like parade floats that are molded out of plastic, so the car looks like a smurf or a tire or a pair of sunglasses, watch, bike bread pedaler, etc. they all have people who are hanging out the back and had on a harness throuhing junk out the back. Its Crazy!! Then the riders came through and the where flying! we where standing really close and they where just a blur when they passed. When the Italian police finally let us ride back into France Their was a lot of traffic on the road and we ended up weaving in and out of moterhomes all the way down the mountain. The ride back to our hotel was about 50 miles. Their was a pretty good climb in their to. (the same climb the tour did today) We meet up with everyone and got back to dinner as fast as possible. We sat down and ate in our bike outfits. It was a very long day. Every day the rider from our group with the yellow jersey passes it on to another person. They gave it to me yesterday for being a quiet profesinal (?) I felt honored. I feel like I have been riding pretty hard espescialy for not training, but I definetly think their are other guys who are riding very strong as well.
Today we had the option to ride back up to where the tour was coming through. Their where going to be more people and more traffic. We just did the ride yesterday, so it wasnt sounding like much of an option for me so I decided to take another recamended ride. One that the tour organized recamended as the most beautiful around. It was stunning! I rode with to other people from the group and we couldn't go very far at all with out stopping to take a pic of another waterfall, or mountain or wildflowers or something else beautiful! I really am so lucky to have the opportunity to see the things I saw today! I took so many pictours that my battery died not that it matters because they could never do it justice. I love the Alps.Later gators.