Plateau of Valensole A picturesque little Provencal town, Valensole is well named: it comes from Vallis and Sallis, the “Valley of the Sun”. The...
The Train des Pignes
Imagined in 1861 by the Dignois inventor Alfonse Beau de Rochas, the Train des Pignes line was designed to link the Mediterranean (Nice) to the Alps (Grenoble).
It is finally only from Digne les Bains that the line is built.
With a speed of about 60km/, the Train des Pignes route crosses splendid landscapes, from Haute Provence and the Asse Valley to the hinterland of Nice, passing through the Verdon and the Var Valley! Many stops are possible to visit the villages of Provence!
From Digne-les-Bains, through the Asse Valley – village of Mézel and Châteauredon – to Barrême. The route then continues through the Haut Verdon, then the villages of character Annot and Entrevaux. Before reaching Nice, the Train des Pignes runs through the Haut Var valley (Touët sur Var, Villars sur Var).
Why the Train des Pignes?
Known for going slowly and “taking its time” since the beginning, the train des Pignes runs about 3h30 from Digne-les-Bains to Nice.
One of the legends says that “the train used to be so slow that travelers had time to get off to pick pine cones or pine nuts”, hence its name.
What is the history of the Train des Pignes?
The construction of the network was started by the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Sud de la France in 1888 on 450km serving the departments of Alpes Maritimes, Var and Alpes de Haute Provence.
3 main lines were created: Meyrages – Nice (211 km), Toulon – Saint-Raphael (104 km) and Digne-les-Bains – Nice (151 km).
Shortly before 1950, the first two lines were closed, leaving only the one connecting Nice and Digne-les-Bains, which still exists today.
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