The travel section of the Saturday Guardian Magazine on 23rd May 2023 included a few pages about train journeys in Europe (pages 72 to 77). This is the second part of a look at those pages. …

The featured image for this article is the Train des Merveilles (Train of Wonders), a scenic tourist train that runs between Nice, France, and Tende, France. Services also run on to Cuneo. The train travels through the Roya Valley, through rugged gorges, picturesque villages, and numerous tunnels. The line is a feat of engineering, featuring hundreds of bridges and tunnels to traverse the steep terrain of Les Alpes Maritime. The viaduct shown in the featured image is the Viaduc de l’Erbossiera, a unique structure designed to run longitudinally through a river gorge having a singular upturned ‘U’-shaped pier (just off the left of the photograph), © Monaco Tribune, (although used on a significant number of different webpages). [14]

2. France’s Wonder Train

My wife and I stay regularly in Nice or in Les Alpes Maritime and have often travelled on the line between Nice, Tende and Cuneo – Le Train des Merveilles. A particular favourite location to stay has been the perched village of Saorge which overlooks a section of the line.

In recent years, the valley of La Roya has experienced devastating flooding. In October 2023, Storm Alex hit the valleys of the Royal and the Vesubie causing catastrophic damage.

The Institut Géographique National published excellent interactive maps showing the Roya and Vésubie valleys before and after Alex. These can be found here. [2]

If it is of interest you can read about the history of the railway line in a series of articles, here, [3] here, [4] here, [5], here, [6] here, [7] here, [8] here, [9] here, [10] and here. [11]

In 2026, the railway line running up the valley of La Roya is open once again. Anna­belle Thorpe writes about a journey up the line and about other surrounding areas visited. [1]

It was good to read about the area in the article in the Guardian Saturday magazine. [1]

Annabelle Thorpe travelled the line after it reopened. She writes:

“Back on track last December after a programme of major works closed the line for a year, it’s one of the most spectacular train routes in Europe, a two-hour journey that climbs 1,000 metres in 100km, linking Nice with the medieval town of Tende, surrounded by the soaring peaks of the Mercantour national park.

“It’s barely 10 minutes before the suburbs of Nice begin to melt into low hills, scattered with auburn-roofed villas and copses of chestnut trees. Once the ascent begins, it’s easy to see why maintaining the line, begun in 1883, is a serious task. More than 100 bridges and viaducts – and almost as many tunnels and retaining walls – stitch the track together, along with ingenious helical loop tunnels, which gain altitude by following a series of bends inside the mountain itself.

“It’s a breathtaking ride, the hills gaining height and heft, until a great mountainscape begins to unfold before us; jagged peaks that make the valley road below seem little more than a thin sliver of ribbon.

“Many passengers ride straight up to Tende and set off to hike the mountain trails that lead off from the town. But we want to see a little more, and disembark first at Sospel, a medieval town where the 13th-century Pont-Vieux straddles the Bévéra River. It’s market day and, even in such a small town, there are flower and vegetable stalls, great wheels of cheese and delicious looking breads. We stroll the quiet streets, past crumbling baroque churches and gothic-style houses. It’s amazing to think we are barely an hour from Nice – it feels like we’ve been transported to an entirely different region of France.

The higher we go, the more the feeling of stepping back in time grows. At La Brigue, the gateway to the Mercantour national park, the tangle of medieval streets feel barely raised from their winter sleep; the town only really comes alive in summer, when the hikers arrive. La Brigue’s claim to fame is the Chapel of our Lady of Fountains, a couple of miles outside the town. Named for the seven springs that trickle through the rocks nearby, parts of the church date back to the 13th century, when, legend has it, villagers built it as a sign of gratitude to the Virgin Mary after prayers for a new water source for La Brigue were answered. While the facade is unassuming, the interior is truly extraordinary; its walls and ceiling are covered in 15th-century frescoes by Giovanni Canavesio that are so vivid the church is sometimes called the Sistine Chapel of the Southern Alps.

By the time we arrive in Tende, where the houses cling to the mountainside, we are 800 metres above sea level and there is nothing but wooded slopes leading to high peaks and a crisp, clear silence. We follow the modern main street through the clustered, medieval houses of the old town up to the ruins of Chateau Lascaris, where the views stretch to the distant peaks of the Marguareis massif, the last mountains before Italy. It’s quite a pull, and afterwards we reward ourselves with mammoth croque monsieurs at Stella Alpina – part outdoor equipment shop, part rustic eaterie. Around us, hearty looking chaps in Lycra cycling tops are tucking into pints of lager and platters of local cheese and cured meats.

Much restored, we dip into the Musee de Merveilles, where we learn (through our fractured French) that the area is home to one of Europe’s largest Neolithic and Bronze Age rock-engraving sites. The town’s more recent (relatively speaking) history is tied to the Salt Road, a mule train route between the Piedmontese Alps and the Ligurian coast, used from the middle ages until the 18th century. Built as the last French stop-off along the trade route, it partly explains why a town of such a size was located in such an isolated, mountainous location.” [1: p74-75]

Annette Thorpe’s article goes on to talk of visits to Antibes, Beaulieu-sur-Mer and the city of Nice. Places that feature strongly in our own experience of Nice and its environs and which sit alongside places like Saorge and Menton in our own reminiscences!

The railway from Nice through Tende to Cuneo is as spectacular as Annette Thorpe says. It is an excellent experience which I can highly recommend.

Annette Thorpe concludes:

“That’s the beauty of Nice. It’s both a destination itself and a gateway to very different worlds, all of them just a train ride away. The Train des Merveilles is unarguably the highlight; those extraordinary twists and turns, the grandiose scenery, wild and untouched, so different from the busy streets of Nice. But to pack all of it into one short trip is to make the very most of this diversely beautiful region; a trip des merveilles indeed. [1: p75]

Our visits to the city of Nice have always been in the late Autumn when Mediterranean weather is considerably more mild than in high summer. The added benefit of travel in the late Autumn, is that traffic density on the coast roads is much lower than in the height of the tourist season.

Any visit to Nice should also include a trip on the metre-gauge Chemins de Fer de Provence and, of course, visits to the villages along its route.

References

1. Anna­belle Thorpe; France’s Wonder Train; in Saturday (the Guardian Magazine), 23rd May 2026, p74-75.
2. https://alex.ign.fr, accessed on 24th May 2026.
3. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/07/22/the-railway-from-nice-to-tende-and-cuneo-part-1
4. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/07/26/the-railway-from-nice-to-tende-and-cuneo-part-2
5. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/08/06/the-railway-from-nice-to-tende-and-cuneo-part-3-vievola-to-st-dalmas-de-tende
6. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/08/16/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-4-st-dalmas-de-tende-to-breil-sur-roya/
7. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/08/25/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-5-breil-sur-roya-to-ventimiglia
8. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/08/29/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-6-breil-sur-roya-to-lescarene
9. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/09/26/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-7-lescarene-to-drap-cantaron-railway-station
10. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/10/07/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-8-drap-cantaron-railway-station-to-nice.
11. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/02/06/the-railway-between-nice-tende-and-cuneo-part-9-the-short-golden-age.
12. https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontan_-_Saorge_(stacidomo)#/media/Dosiero%3AFontan-Saorge_staz_ferr_D.445.jpg, accessed on 24th May 2026.
13. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Viaducttende.JPG, accessed on 24th March 2026.
14. https://www.monaco-tribune.com/en/2025/12/train-des-merveilles-between-nice-and-tende-finally-reconnects-with-the-roya-valley, accessed on 24th May 2026.