Au Revoir Nice

Our taxi arrived right on time.  The driver, like most that we have met, was friendly and talkative.  He said he was from Corsica and asked if we knew where that was.  I told him yes, that was where Napoleon Bonaparte had been born, and he seemed pleased that I knew that.  “You can see the Bonaparte house today,” he said.  The ride to the airport was not far, and as we drove down the palm-tree-lined Boulevarde des Anglais he told us that the rich fly in to Nice on private jets, and then take helicopters from the airport to Monte Carlo, Cannes, and St. Tropez.

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport was the smallest we had been in, and the Air France Airbus A318 was the smallest plane in which we had flown.  It eased up to our gate like a bus would to a bus stop.  I estimated it could hold no more than 125 passengers, a little more than twice the size of our Trafalgar coach.

The first class seats were in front but looked just like ours.  Still, once we were in the air the flight attendants pulled a curtain between them and us.  “Would you like something to drink?” I was asked.  “Champagne?”  That got a laugh; I settled for Perrier. 

Since we were flying between two cities in France, we bypassed customs and security, and in no time we were in a taxi on the way from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Hotel Mercure.  Coincidentally, we pulled in directly behind the Trafalgar coach just as our fellow-passengers were exiting.  We had not seen them in a week, and several of them came over and talked to us.  We learned that they had not been told that we had Covid, although surely they must have deduced it.  Why else would we have dropped out of the tour?  We met with Bruno later and I asked him if any of the other passengers had gotten Covid.  He indicated that some of them might have, but had kept quiet about it.  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.  I think he appreciated that we had been honest and not tried to conceal my symptoms so that we could complete the tour.

Most of our tour group were going to a lengthy dinner and show at the Moulin Rouge cabaret, but we had already been to the Crazy Horse and wanted to enjoy some time by ourselves.  We went down the street to a small brasserie on the corner called Le Tocqueville, where the menu was entirely in French and the young man serving us did not speak very good English.  But he was friendly and patient, and the food was delicious.