There is a little town with a big-sounding name in the French Alps called Le Grand-Bornand that you won't find in a lot of tourist books. It's a few dozen kilometres from the Italian border, at 1,300 metres. One part of town is more than 500 years old.
It's typical of hundreds of villages in the Alps. But there was one big difference this summer: Le Grand-Bornand was a stop on this year's Tour de France.
The televised version of the Tour is mainly about the race and the cyclists, with brief vignettes of the communities it passes through.
But what happened at Le Grand-Bornand and roughly 35 other towns this summer was the Tour as the French know it, a cultural phenomenon that rolls through tiny villages and beautiful towns and proud cities where the arrival or departure of "le Tour" is their national moment.
Two weeks ago, I was privileged to be part of a small group that had unprecedented access to the Tour for the five days it climbed up the Alps from Bourg-en-Bresse, peaked at Val d'Isère and Tignes, and roared down to Briançon.
What we saw was not just a bicycle race - it was a chess game played on two wheels by 21 teams made up of 180 racers. More importantly, at ground level, it is where you can discover the real France, a long way from the crowds in Paris.
The little towns like Le Grand-Bornand apply years in advance to host a start or finish of one of the 20 daily stages. If their application is successful, they pay the Tour roughly 150,000 euros (about $220,000) and immediately began to prepare for the arrival of this itinerant international village known as "le Tour." For those lucky enough to hook up with the Tour for a few days, the most rewarding part can be how the host towns and regions use their 24 hours in the sun to showcase themselves. And what a party it can be.
The towns are scrubbed spotless and the banners and flags are hung at every available opportunity. The local culture is displayed in the town halls, the community centres and the many ancient churches.
The local cuisine, the breads and cheeses and pâtés, are all on display, made as they have been for hundreds of years. Open-air markets sell the local meats, fruits and vegetables, clothes and regional artifacts.
On race day, a town's population can grow from a few thousand to 25,000 as cycling fans from around the region pour in. Cafés, restaurants and bars open mid-morning and do a boisterous business all day.
The racers won't arrive for five to six hours, but live updates are continually provided by an announcer, usually in the town square, where a large screen provides a television feed of the approaching race.
And nothing - absolutely nothing in professional sport - can compare to the finish, when the best cyclists in the world roar into the town square on the cobblestones of an ancient French village at 35 kilometres per hour, with the roar of the crowd echoing off the slopes of the Alps.
I know, I know - more idiots were busted and tossed from the race this year for various doping transgressions, proof that a dwindling number of cyclists continue to cheat. It was discouraging, and even The Globe's Allan Maki wrote that the Tour should be called off.
Nonsense. You can't cancel a national phenomenon that is a combination sporting event, cultural festival, unifying celebration and statement to the world.
You can't simply cancel cyclists who push their physical endurance to the outer limits on roads to the sky that have no business being there, passing through villages that also saw the Crusaders go through 1,000 years ago.
Like most things in life, this race can always be made better, and there will always be cheaters. Nonetheless, to see the Tour from ground level is to see more than a bicycle race - it is to see a country. Not a country from the tourist brochures, but a country as it really is, and a people as they really are.
With apologies to Lance Armstrong, it really is about the bike.