Did you ever see the Andrew Lloyd Webber play or the movie Starlight Express? It is about trains…a little engine Rusty who wanted to be like the big guys. It was performed on in-line skates and part of the set included a model railroad mounted on tracks that ran all the way around the periphery of the theatre ceiling. The train circled the theatre on its tracks during the entire play. And why, you ask, would I be describing an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical when I am writing about Nice?

Three weeks ago, I stopped at a meat market (la boucherie) in a very crowded and busy part of Old Nice to purchase a roasted chicken ala Costco for dinner with Harry and Una. The butcher packaged it in a bright red plastic sack, gave me a white piece of paper with the number 30 written on it and pointed to my left to a cash register on the other side of this rather large and very busy shop. He held onto the sack. I gulped. Had I just been charged 30 Euros for a roasted chicken? I was remembering that my friend who is in Paris complained about paying 17 Euros for poulet rôti…what has happened to the price of chicken in France? Then I saw the gentleman put my red sack on a conveyor belt high enough over his head that he had to stretch to reach it and I watched as my sack of poulet rôti began a transit around behind all the workers, over the cases of meat, along the wall on the far side of the shop, then PLONK it slid down the end of the conveyer belt and landed smack in front of the lady who was the cashier. I was stunned…fascinated by this unique marvel of transit for meat. I paid for my chicken…the price plainly marked on the red sack, 3.90 Euros (my sack was #30) and with a great laugh, walked alongside Harry and Una and explained to them what had happened. It took me several trips to the boucherie to finally get a photo of a sack sliding off the conveyer belt. Yesterday, the shop was not as busy and I explained to the cashier lady why I wanted a photo, and voila…here are several pictures of the “Roasted Chicken on the Starlight Express.” I will think of this experience with great amusement for a long time to come.

(Be sure you tap on each photo to enlarge it enough that you can see the details.)