Tour

bykhtch2003

I attended the prologue last year in Paris and the start of the first stage in St. Denis, a suburb of Paris. The only restricted areas that I saw were the hospitality tents of the sponsors, Michelin, L'Equipe, Credit Lyonnaise, etc. You could get quite close to the team vans before the stages started and, if you were early to the area/platform where the riders sign in for the stage, you could get quite close to each rider as he came by to sign in. We tried standing near the start house for the prologue and it was OK but there was a lot of jostling for position to get close even before the parade of floats started. Later we tried walking around the course and found a position where we could see the intermediate time split as each rider came by. There were not that many people there, even though it was downtown Paris, and that would be the place I would look for if I attended another prologue. In the early evening, the night before the prologue, there was a "parade of the teams" where each team slowly rode around a small circuit of the streets of Paris. This was hardly publicized at all but you could get a good look at all the riders by team as they came by. I would try and check out whether they were going to do that again. We did not do a stage finish so I do not know whether you need a ticket to get to the area where you can see the jumbo screen with the stage coverage. Regardless, my advice would be, whatever you're going to do, if it involves being near the start or finish, get there very early. There will be lots of booths and places where you can spend your euros and you will be able to get a good place for viewing. Good luck.