Uncanny, Part 2 - 10/15/13

So, upon arriving in Nice, our guide, Mirta, told us we were going to ride on a wonderful little train and we would love it as much as we loved Saint Paul de Vence. As we drove along the waterfront promenade, she pointed to "Castle Hill" and said we could either walk up (a joke) or ride the train to the top, where we would see a beautiful waterfall and a castle.

The "unforgettable" Nice Tram Tour

We arrived at the beach and were told to wait on the bus until she found out whether the little train already there was the one we would get on. (Didn't she know?) After much discussion we were advised that we should get off the bus and get on the little train. The people that were on it eventually got off and we got on. It wasn't really a train; it was a little tram cleverly disguised to look like an old-timey train with 3 dinky open-air carts behind it. We got on and they locked us in and then told us we would have to wait for another busload to arrive before we could begin the tour. We sat in this contraption for 20 minutes breathing horrible fumes from the engine while we waited for the other group to arrive. They wouldn't let us off the tram and they wouldn't turn off the engine.

I stared at the beach during this time. It was comprised of egg-sized gray rocks and didn't look the least bit nice. Surprisingly, there were people actually sitting on this rocky "beach" and even swimming. It looked even more uncomfortable than our little, narrow, hard, diesel-infused seats on the tram thing.

A picture of the Rocky Horror Beach

Bike path along the beach

After the arrival of the other group, it became apparent that we would need to use the headsets that untold numbers of previous tours had used. We know this because we got on right after the previous group got off and nobody changed out the headphones. Also, because Ken's had hairs stuck to it. Mine didn't work. I used the next one over and off we went on our adventure. 

According to the tape being broadcast on the headset, we were passing by some kind of park. There was construction going on and the park was surrounded by a 6-foot fence so all you could see was a fence and traffic (which you could also smell). 

The park

 

Some more of the park

There was a huge traffic jam, so it took us over 20 minutes to go about 4 blocks. During this time, there was nothing to see and nothing to breathe.Two motorcycles were stuck in the traffic jam right next to me and they contributed more than their fair share to the air pollution.You could also "enjoy" the tinny honky-tonk music that was coming through the headphones.

If I had to live in Nice, I think I would like to live in this house

I could understand about half of the narration. The sound quality was terrible and the abilities of the translator were questionable. Here are some of the things I may have learned about Nice:

* The Romans put salmonella all around the hill with the castle

* Nice wouldn't be Nice without its carnivores

* The first people settled in Nice 400,000 years ago

* We were near someplace else

Once we got past the construction fence, I found that when you were on a narrow street, you still couldn't see anything more than about 5 feet off the ground due to the canopy on the tram. I did see a statue of a naked man, which was maybe the highlight of the tour, and the back of a statue of somebody important with a cape.

Why did this have to be the only thing I got a good view of?

As long as we're looking at statues, what about these?

The castle hill in the background

Then we saw where the flower market was, but it wasn't there at that time. Then we went down a narrow street and almost hit some pedestrians and then we came to the castle hill.  It was, apparently, either a park or a cemetery or both. The tram drove really far over to the side of the road, so that the people on one side got scraped by the bushes.

The Jewish cemetery

Suddenly the tram stopped in the middle of the hill and we were told to get off and admire the view. There was a Jewish cemetery right there and a Catholic cemetery nearby. You could tell who the Jews on the tour were because they all rushed over to the Jewish cemetery to take pictures.

The Jewish cemetery

The Catholic cemetery

After 5 minutes, it was back onto the tram, put the dirty headsets back on, and head back down. No waterfall, no castle, no amazing view. Not impressed, not happy.

Upon our return to the spot where we boarded, there was a large group of chumps eager to take our places on the tram. Moral dilemma: should we say something to them?

 
Back on the bus, Mirta said she felt she needed to apologize to us, and I thought, "Yeah, you really do need to apologize to us." I couldn't wait to hear what she was going to say. It was not what I expected. She told us the pump (!) for the waterfall had exploded and that was why we couldn't go all the way to the top of the hill. In other words, it wasn't even a real waterfall. I never did find out if there was a castle up there. She did not apologize for anything else.

I was so happy to get back to the tender dock in Cannes after such a forgettable tour of Nice. In the evening, we had another chance to be entertained by the ventriloquist and the West End vocalist. We declined.