Running with the Tour de France

Young Chang

Tim Marshall become somewhat of an international star last month

for having run alongside Lance Armstrong waving the American flag

during one stage of the Tour de France.

“And the TV reporters all commented on him,” said wife Patsy

Marshall. “So all our friends here in Newport saw him and called us.

We had a cell phone over there in Europe and we got millions of phone

calls.”

When they weren’t at the three-week Tour de France during their

summer vacation, which ran from July 21 through Aug. 5, the Newport

Beach couple laid on the beach in Saint Tropez and visited spots

including Portofino and Lake Como. The Tour also took them to Monte

Carlo and the French Alps, where they stayed for two days after the

race ended.

Their three daughters went to camp during this European adventure.

The Tour de France gave the Marshalls the chance to paint the

streets with Armstrong’s name and alternately sing the American

anthem after the French sang theirs.

While in the Alps, they visited the small village of Annecy. Once

a year, the town holds one of the biggest fireworks show in the world

to celebrate Napoleon freeing the French from the Austrians.

“So the fireworks show has been going on for over 200 years and we

were there for that and that was wonderful,” said Patsy Marshall, an

attorney.

The couple remembers how at least 100,000 people watched for six

hours as fireworks shot up near a lake that was walled by mountains.

The fireworks were reflected on the water before they fell.

“It was amazing,” Marshall said. “There was a multi-European,

multi-national crowd of revelers and it was just wonderful.”

Through their three weeks in France, the couple put 1,000 miles on

the rental car and only got lost three times, said Tim Marshall, a

senior vice president at Salomon Smith Barney on Newport Center

Drive.

His favorite memory of the trip is of food -- specifically of fois

gras, which they ate in the French Alps at one of the many small

boutique restaurants in France.

“The outside is like cold and the inside is hot and couple that

with the wine as well as the other dishes and I’m getting hungry

thinking about it,” Tim Marshall said. “And it’s so rich and

fattening. I’ll tell you this, Lance Armstrong doesn’t eat it.”

When asked how he knew, the Tour fan said he had read it in

Armstrong’s book “Not About the Bike.”

“He only eats lean meat,” Tim Marshall said. “He measures all his

food on a scale. We saw his scale at the hotel. Every meal, he puts

it on a scale.”

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to TRAVEL TALES,

330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com;

or fax to (949) 646-4170.