Day Three- Nice – Winter Vacance – Sunday. Day of hell. Even in 0 temps.

I was thinking before we set out this morning “we should probably give up our dream of seeing the ALPS and SNOW.  But, I plugged on and went for the trip that the Tourist Information clerk told us to go for.  It was to TENDE.

If the dinner on Saturday night hadn’t been without incident it probably would have been a much better Sunday.  But it wasn’t and it was what it was.   (Okay, briefly, the escargot was so cold that I had to spit it out and the rest of the dinner was so so with not so so prices. )

Anyway, we did go to TENDE, the ski resorts of ski resorts.  The woman guide aboard the train giving a detail description of this beautiful area spoke only in French. When it started snowing half way up the mountain on this train, she exclaimed to her avid listeners  “ REGARDE!!!   La NEIGE, La Neige!!!”   Look!!!   the snow, the snow!!  “  Okay, I’m looking, I barely see – little snow flakes coming towards the glass window and am thinking….. you’re excited about this?   Please!!!!!!!

This “Group” gets off at the stop before Tende.  There is a bus waiting .  We don’t think anything about this….  Until we arrive in TENDE and the town is not only without ANY snow to speak of, but the town is also DEAD.  I mean, NO one is out, the Tourist office is far from opened, there is NO one about.  Finally, we see a proprietor of a Tabac and ask him about the ski village.  He says, “The bus only goes there starting in MAY.”   MAY????  This is March, and there is no bus till May????  OMG.  I am wanting to be LIVID, but I am not, because I am controlling myself, and – yes, thanking God that I have this opportunity, even though it is NOT EXACTLY what I had bargained for……..  We turned right around and got back on the train  going back to Nice in one hour.  We sat for an hour waiting for the conductor to appear.   I looked at people ( the few people that were getting on the train) and thinking, ofcourse they are going to Nice.  There is NOTHING to do HERE!!! What the heck????

So,

we find out LATER, that the stop BEFORE Tende , was where we really needed to get off , to get the BUS, to take us to the top of the mountain, the ski village, which is where we wanted to be.  (Originally.)  This is the problem with not having everything PLANNED, everything in a “Package sort of deal” but this is what you do when you’re an AIRLINE EMPLOYEE – or RE-TIREE – and wing just about everything that you do.  I find fault, actually with the NICE TOURIST OFFICE that told us to go to TENDE and didn’t tell us – “Oh , By the way, – you must get off the stop – the stop before TENDE, in order to get the special bus that takes you to all that lovely fluffy  SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!   🙂

It’s okay. That hour of silence on the train???  I just meditated.