I got a lot of help from this forum, so thought I'd give a little bit back. First, some practical info for those staying in Nice. From this forum, I learned about the tram system in Nice, which is particularly useful if you are staying in Vieux Nice, but traveling the Riviera, because Vieux Nice is not so close to the train station, or even the bus stops. (It is worth the hike!). Even with the tram, there was a good bit of walking to the tram and from the tram to the station, so the tram really helped. For my first few days, you could buy tram tickets from a machine at the stop (and thank goodness I bought ten). You could buy bus ticket directly from the driver. Literally in the middle of my five day stay, they changed their system, shut down the machines and made so all you could buy from the drivers of the busses was a new card, with one ride only on it, for double price.
Let me tell you I tried. I asked for help. I read the web site. I downloaded, eventually, three apps, one of which sent me to another, etc., etc., etc. In the end, I had to give up riding the tram after we ran out of tickets, and get off a bus when I was unable to reload a card on our last day. This system may be designed to be more expensive for occasional riders/tourists -- and that's fine. But you can't make money if you won't accept it! The need for a physical card instead of an app is a dealkiller, and the weird method of reloading it (I've never seen this before, but you physically hold the card to the phone, you don't scan a code, and this worked maybe once out of 20 times that I tried) is just ... Like many, many cities, you need an all app/no card method. I would have paid just about anything, but this was terrible.
Another thing is beware of the Zou app. On my first day, I mistakenly bought two tickets on the app, thinking those were train tickets to Cannes. They were not. Of course, at the train station in Nice Ville, you do have to scan your tickets to get to the platform (not the case everywhere). They wouldn't scan. The station was overwhelmed with people, the ticket line to the window stretched so far you couldn't see the window. We were in a hurry. I buzzed the help camera by the gates. They looked at my phone screen through the camera and buzzed us through. So now, I felt confident I had the correct tickets. On the train, a conductor came by (I did not know this at the time, but this would be the ONE AND ONLY TIME my tickets were checked on a non-TGV.). Someone in front of me had no tickets, and, she said, no cash, so he was in a bad mood. I showed him my app, and he was like uh-uh, 100 Euros please. I later figured out I should have bought tickets on the SNCF app. This was a true bummer, because I already had the app and several TGF tickets, and even non-TGF tickets for later in my stay from that app. I just had it in my head that in Nice, you use the Zou app. At the time, I was planning to write an email after I got home, but now, I see the likely futility of that and am just letting it go.
Anyway, that went on longer than I planned, sorry! The trip. I loved it! We were very ambitious and also very tired, so often got a later start in the morning than optimal, which eventually resulted in not going to Eze (do NOT leave this for a Sunday, transportation is unreliable and stuff is closed, and of course, Sunday ended up being the only day we could go) or St. Paul de Vence (this is bus plus train instead of one or the other, and the idea made me so tired in the moment).
Out of space, so continuing in next post with an actual trip report ...