Stage 21 Tour de France 2027

Food and Drink to Go with Stage 21 Tour de France 2027

In considering what food and drink should accompany Stage 21, let's start with breakfast. The baguette is based on Viennese bread, adopted in Paris in the 1800s. Similarly, the croissant is a Viennese pastry made in Austrian bakeries that opened in Paris in the 1830s.

Cheeses from the Parisian region are mainly bries, for example from Meaux or Melun.

The Opéra is a cake created by a Parisian pastry chef in 1955. It has layers of sponge and coffee-flavoured cream and ganache, and is topped with chocolate. The chef's wife thought it looked a bit like the stage of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, hence its name.

Macarons are also associated with Paris. Honey is made in Paris by bees in hives on roofs - for example on the roof of the Musée d'Orsay.

There's a thriving beer-making scene in Paris.

Since it's the last day of the 2025 Tour de France, champagne is in order - albeit the riders will probably settle for pizza and beer.

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Start Town

Stage 21 starts in TBC.

Palais de Versailles

The Palais de Versailles is much too big. It was built by a king with an oversized ego and it is furnished and decorated in horrendous taste.

It's far too busy, and if you visit you'll spend all your time either queuing up or jostling with thousands of other people on the way round part of the house. There is a distinct smell of stale pee in most of the rooms.

Don't let me put you off visiting the gardens, though. You can hire a rowing boat or a bike, or you can bring your own bike and ride round. The sorbet ice creams are very nice too. Finally, on certain days the original fountains play - although that also generates an odour.

History

Versailles started off as Louis XIII's hunting lodge.

Louis XIV was inspired to create a palace at Versailles by a visit to finance minister Nicolas Fouquet's residence at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The King accused Fouquet of corruption and had him arrested, then got to work turning Versailles into a huge palace between 1661 and 1715. He used Fouquet's team of Le Vau (architect), Le Nôtre (landscape gardener) and Le Brun (painter).

Louis wanted his court and nobles to live at Versailles, so he could keep an eye on them and prevent any plotting. That's why it had to be so big.

Louis XVI was at Versailles when the French Revolution started. He was marched back to Paris and forced to live in the city, initially in the Tuileries palace, instead of out in the countryside.

Napoléon Bonaparte began the process of turning Versailles into a museum, and under Louis-Philippe in the 1830s it was designated as a Museum of the History of France.

The Treaty of Versailles that formally ended hostilities in World War I was signed in the Hall of Mirrors.

These days, other than being a giant tourist attraction, foreign heads of state are sometimes received at Versailles.

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The Champs-Elysées

The Champs-Elysées is the most famous street in Paris.

It runs for 1.2 miles from place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe at Charles de Gaulle Etoile.

The lower part of the Champs-Elysées was originally laid out by André le Nôtre as an extension of Tuileries gardens in 1667.

The street was extended from Rond-Point up to Etoile under Napoléon Bonaparte. The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by Bonaparte but not completed until after his fall from power in 1815. The Champs-Elysées was remodelled under Emporer Napoléon III from 1854.

The Bastille Day parade takes place here every year.

There are eight traffic lanes on the Champs-Elysées, and it is very polluted. In 2021 Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to cut space for motor vehicles by 50%, create 'tree tunnels' to improve air quality, and to give more space to pedestrians.

The work was postponed until after the 2024 Olympic Games, and won't be completed until 2030.