Tour de France 2024 Stage 13: Agen to Pau

Where are we? Heading into the Pyrenees.

Agen: Time for some art. Located in the heart of the historic district of Agen, the Museum of Fine Arts is one of the most important museums in the South-West due to its richness and diversity. It is renowned for its masterpieces by Goya (including the self-portrait), its Venus du Mas (Roman period), its Tintoretto (Venetian Renaissance), discovered during the inventory of the collections in 1997 and its impressionist paintings (Sisley , Corot…). The museum is installed on five levels in four private mansions from the 16th and 17th centuries which reveal their architectural wealth during the tour: Renaissance spiral staircase, interior courtyards, fireplaces, period furniture... More than 3,000 objects there are permanently exhibited in 26 rooms, like a rich cabinet of curiosities. The museum participates in exchanges of works with other museums and organizes major exhibitions every year.

Le Tour specialties: Agen prunes, floc de Gascogne, tourin (garlic soup), tourtière (apple cake), ceps, salmis de palombe

Pau: From the tourist website: In the nineteenth, Pau is a prestigious resort. From Russia to Brazil, city, resort winter and summer tourist center, is the fashionable meeting of high society.The geographical location of the city, the magnificent views across the countryside from a hillside, the presence of native castle of Henry IV, all combine to make the city the gateway to the Pyrenees. Gateway to the benefits of spas, the grandeur of its mountain scenery is celebrated by the romantic fashion of the "trip to the Pyrenees". Thus, at an early stage in the history of the spa and health resort  Pau began selling in the early nineteenth century an intangible product, which all have and yet belongs to no one: the air!

From the years 1830-1840, the history of the city then takes a unexpected turn marked with the seal of the development of global tourism . The success further increases from 1842, when a Scottish doctor, Dr. Taylor Alexander, based in Pau recovering, began to show his countrymen that the local climate can have beneficial properties in the treatment of tuberculosis. It now becomes fashionable to spend the winter at Pau for his health care there ... or just show it! This period is commonly referred to as "English Town". 

Le Tour specialties: garbure, poule au pot, foie gras, magret and other duck and goose dishes, honey, coucougnettes du Vert Galant (roasted almonds coated in dark chocolate and raspberry marzipan), Verdier chocolates, Francis Miot jams, le Russe (almond cake with praline cream), ossau-iraty (cheese), wines (Jurançon, Madiran, Pacherenc).

Christian Prudhomme says:  The Lot-et-Garonne serves up some lovely balcony roads early in the stage, when the formation of the breakaway will be closely monitored by the sprinters’ teams, who will have studied the route carefully. If they judge their effort correctly, they won’t be caught out by the day’s escapees. However, amidst the hilly terrain approaching the finish, the Blachon and Simacourbe climbs could pose a problem for those sprinters who don’t feel comfortable in the hills.

The stage: Not starting on the day, Roglic.  Breakaway? Sprint? Time to find out. Indeed there were a lot of riders interested in the break.  It was a very chaotic start.

There would be attacks, counter attacks, dropped riders, splits, and more.

Forty km to go and the main bunch was back together, with Cavendish and others off the back, with Carapaz and Johannessen attacking off the front. Under 25 kms to go and they had around 30 seconds. 

Some field art!

🚜🚲 13e étape du #TDF2024 | @LeTour de France passe en ce moment par le département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques, département réputé - notamment - pour sa viticulture. Localement, c'est 11.548 exploitants et salariés agricoles, dont 56 % d’hommes et 44 % de femmes ! Mais aussi un… pic.twitter.com/B3f0hziTuX

— La FNSEA (@FNSEA) July 12, 2024

There were still numerous sprinters in the main group, so a bunch sprint remained likely. Under 20 kms to go and more attacks from the peloton. Would they keep it together for that bunch sprint or would one of these attacks succeed?  Stuyvens was looking very strong, but it had been attacks all the way in. Would this be Girmay again?

Crash on the way in and it would be a small group contesting the sprint. That was a mess. Philipsen with the win. 

The wine:  Maison Blanche Bordeaux Rouge 2008 

from Copake Wine Works 

Christy says: OK, I’ll confess. When I ordered this wine I was expected the Marnes Blanches from the Jura to arrive. Clearly I wasn’t paying attention. Because this is definitely NOT a white, oxidative wine from the pre-Alpine part of France. Nope, Maison Blanche is a red Bordeaux from the country’s western Atlantic coast. But I can’t say I was mad at myself, because this is a very good wine. And honestly, Bordeaux Rouge is a much easier sell than whites from the Jura!

The estate dates back to 1875 and has been Demeter-certified (a.k.a. biodynamic) in 2013. It’s a Right Bank estate, so the grapes are cabernet franc and merlot. It’s rich and lush wine with a touch of fancy oak – but it’s not at all overdone. And at 14 years old, it’s a wildly good deal. 2008 was a classic vintage, before things started to really heat up – both in terms of price, and climate. The red fruit has mellowed, picking up dried tobacco leafy complexity, without losing its freshness. At this price, this bottle is an excellent way to wade into the world of aged wine and see if you like it. If you’ve got the cash to spend, grab a bottle of this, the 2000 and the 2018 and explore the vertical.

The food: Agen prunes

From Le Tour: Prunes came from China along the Silk Road to Syria. It was the Romans who brought the cultivation and drying of prunes the Agen region. They planted several varieties, including the Saint-Antonin or Maurine plum, a small blue plum that produced a very black prune of small size. Other varieties of Damascus plum were later brought to the Agen from Syria by the Crusaders in the 13th century. The monks of Clairac, by grafting with local plum trees, selected this new variety of Prune d'Ente (in old French "enter" means "to graft"). This new variety, with its thin skin and beautiful mauve-blue colour, is well adapted to the terroirs of the South-West. The resulting new prune is large in size, with delicate flavours and aromas. Thanks to its port on the Garonne, Agen became the main town for prune shipments. As they are stamped with the name of the port of embarkation of origin, they are known as Pruneaux d'Agen (Agen prunes). Pruneau d'Agen left from the great port of Bordeaux and were sold all over the world from the 17th to the 19th century. It was part of the navy's supplies in the days of the French Royal Navy and then the steam merchant navy, and was more generally taken on as an on-board provision for all long-distance voyages. Mixed with a custard made from eggs, flour and sugar, sailors created the famous recipe for Far Breton with prunes. The mid-19th century was a golden age, with annual production of 70,000 tonnes and over 20,000 tonnes exported to North America every year. As a result, the company expanded into California, followed by Argentina and Chile, South Africa and Australia. After a number of difficult years due to the two world wars, Agen prune production regained its pedigree with the award of a PGI in 2002 by the European Union.