Le train des Merveilles

After seeing off our dear friends on Sunday, Nick still graced us with our presence for a couple of days. I decided to take Monday off to show him some of the sights. After some deliberation, we decided upon taking the Train des Merveilles.

The Train des Merveilles is a touristic train organized by SNCF (the national train company in France), which runs from Nice, down the Roya valley all the way to Tende, on the Italian border. It’s a very scenic train ride indeed, taking in stunning mountain scenery as the train makes its way along the riverbed. We already took the train two years ago with Ollie and Rafa, but it’s a train journey well worth making more than once.

Planning the day is quite important, since there are quite few trains along this particular train line. Due to the train schedules, we decided to get off at Saint-Dalmas (instead of going all the way to Tende), and then take the train back to Breil-sur-Roya, and do a hike there. Getting off at Saint-Dalmas turned out to be a bit of a mistake, since there is actually nothing to see there – maybe apart from the rather impressive train station, built during the Mussolini years before world war II (the reason such an impressive train station can be found in a small village like Saint-Dalmas is that it actually used to be border station on the Italian side until 1947 – when Tende and Saint-Dalmas became French). Thankfully we had only half an hour to wait for a train, which we spent drinking a coffee in a bar we found…

Another train ride later, we got off at Breil-sur-Roya. It’s one of the biggest communes on the train line, and quite a charming village at that. Not perhaps quite as pretty as Tende or Saorge (the places we visited on our last train ride here), but rather picturesque nonetheless, squatted at the bottom of the valley, with imposing mountains as a backdrop.

The plan was to do a hike here, but unfortunately the tourist office was closed for lunch. Thankfully we found a couple of helpful locals, who told us about a short-ish hike around a tower, overlooking the village. We set off straight away, since it was already after noon, and we wanted to have some food before catching our train back to Nice. It was a pretty nice walk, with a rather steep ascent up to the watch tower (which had been restored by the locals). We were greeted to some pretty awesome views over the valley and the village from there. Unfortunately the sky was a little bit overcast by now, so we decided to quickly carry on. An hour or so later we were back at the village.

Before having lunch, we had a quick look inside the Baroque parish church. It was surprisingly impressive on the inside, actually, considering the size of the village. But the building could definitely benefit from a bit of restoration. For lunch, we found a cozy little place at the main square, where we had a perfectly decent three-course meal for 12 Euros – pretty darn good value for money if you ask me… After a relaxing coffee, it was time to catch our train.

We actually had to make our way back via Ventimiglia on the Italian side (there are very few direct trains between Tende and Nice). So since we had to change trains there anyway, we decided to have a quick walk around the old town (after Nick took the opportunity to try to chat up some Japanese ladies). Ventimiglia is more known for its fake goods market and cheap booze, than historic monuments, but the old town is actually pretty charming itself (pretty much every Italian town we’ve been to seems to have a charming old town). We even visited the cathedral – which was pretty nice (although not quite of the same caliber as the churches we’d been overwhelmed by on our recent visit to Tuscany and Umbria).

And then it was time to hop on the train back to Nice! Good day, all in all… Although a bit sunnier weather would’ve been nice…