At 8:12 this morning, terminal 1 of Nice airport was still surprisingly empty considering it was the first day of school vacation in this region. For winter and spring school vacations, France is split into three zones. This year, zone A begins its vacation on February 7 and school resumes on February 23; zone B (that’s us) starts on February 21 and classes begin again on March 9; finally, zone C’s first vacation day is on February 14, with classes resuming on March 2. Clearly, this weekend is the tough one: zone B leaves for vacation just as zone A heads home. This results in the dreaded “chassé-croisé” (heavy two-way traffic). In the winter it affects mostly rail and road, so my wife had no trouble making her flight to London and onward to Raleigh.