Cannes

Friday April 15, 2011 Day 289

Happy traditional tax day. For the first time ever, we filed an extension for our tax return. We are pretty sure we will get a refund, but we do not have the paperwork nor the incentive to do our taxes here.

Aaron went out for breakfast and brought back pastries and a surprise - strawberries. Yum!

We planned to go to Cannes, and we waited forever in the ticket line - more than 1.5 hours. When we bought the tickets, we informed the clerk that there are two seniors in our group. She printed out a single ticket and handed it to us. We assumed that we did not get the senior rate, but we just shrugged and moved on - some of the clerks give it to us, others do not. The cost of the tickets was so little that there would have been very little savings in the senior rate.

Cannes, when we finally got there, was much like the rest of the Côte d’Azur - mountains or mountain cliffs, with a harbor below. There was no hop-on-hop-off bus there, but a small tourist train took us around the major areas of Cannes.

Tiny houses in Cannes

Cannes harbor

We boarded the train to head back to Nice in the late afternoon. While we were on the train, the conductor came through to check tickets, and she was accompanied by two SNCF (train company) security men. Shortly after they entered our car, a gentleman sitting behind us rose and tried to leave. He was instructed to remain so his ticket could be checked, and he received a written summons or fine of some sort. When they got to our seat, I handed over the 4-person ticket. She glanced at it, looked at all of us, then asked how old Aaron was. I told her 38 (oops! He is only 37). Apparently we bought 4 senior tickets this morning. This didn’t seem to bother her much. She looked at one of the security guys and they exchanged a shrug, then she punched the ticket, returned it to me and moved on.

My cold is full-blown now. Unfortunately, I did not bring enough zinc lozenges. I have plenty at the apartment, but only a few here, and I already used them all up.