France’s Most Spectacular Train Just Reopened After 15 Months Dark
It was closed for 15 months. €74 million in renovations. And in December 2025, one of Europe’s greatest train rides quietly pulled back into service.
The Train des Merveilles (the Train of Wonders) connects Nice on the Mediterranean coast to the mountain village of Tende near the Italian border.
It climbs from sea level to over 1,000 meters in about two hours. And if you haven’t heard of it, you’re probably not alone.
Opened in 1928, it took 45 years to build
Nice to the Alps in 90 Minutes
The journey covers roughly 70 kilometers, but altitude-wise you’re doing something extraordinary.
You board at Nice-Ville station, and within two hours you’re deep in the Mercantour National Park, surrounded by high alpine valleys that feel a world away from the Promenade des Anglais.
The 9:32am departure is the one to take. It arrives in Tende at 11:32am, and from May through October a free on-board guide explains the line’s history in French and English.
The Construction Story Sounds Made Up
The engineers who built this line in 1883 had a serious problem. You can’t just lay tracks straight up a mountain. So they didn’t!
The line features 4 helical tunnel loops – spiral passages bored entirely inside the mountain that allow the train to gain altitude by corkscrewing upward through the rock.
You enter a tunnel and exit the other side several meters higher, having completed a full spiral inside the peak itself.
Then there’s the infrastructure surrounding those tunnels: 407 bridges and viaducts (including the Rivoira viaduct spanning 300 meters), 81 tunnels totaling 44 kilometers of underground travel, and 130 retaining walls.
The whole thing took 45 years to build and opened in 1928.
A Valley That Used to Be Italy
This valley was Italian until 1947.
Construction began while the County of Nice was transitioning to French rule, but the Roya Valley stayed Italian.
Several stations along the lin, including the one at Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende, were built by Mussolini as cultural showpieces meant to impress his neighbors.
After World War II, local residents voted to join France, bringing the rail line with them.
The line also shares a section of track with Italy’s Ventimiglia-Cuneo service, making it one of the few genuine cross-border Franco-Italian routes still operating.
The Villages Worth Stopping In
The train serves a string of medieval villages that don’t get much tourist traffic. You can get off, explore, and catch a later train – though services run only a few times per day, so keep that in mind.
Sospel sits about an hour from Nice, with pastel Italian-style facades lining a river bank.
Breil-sur-Roya has an ecomuseum 5 minutes from the station, with historic locomotives and old photographs documenting the line’s construction.
La Brigue near the Italian border still has an espresso culture that never quite converted to café au lait.
And at Tende, you’re close enough to the Vallée des Merveilles, the valley that gives this entire line its name, to arrange a guided hike to see the Bronze Age petroglyphs carved into the rocks there some 5,000 years ago.
What the Renovation Changed
The €74 million project – funded largely by the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region – included reinforcing two tunnel vaults, stabilizing a dozen earthworks against landslide risk, replacing sections of track and an entire rail bridge, and updating the rolling stock.
An official inauguration ceremony was held at Breil-sur-Roya station on December 15, 2025, with SNCF chief Jean Castex and Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot present.
The region’s president, Renaud Muselier, called it “a new boost for the train and for the Roya Valley.”
Practical Details for 2026
The tourist service runs weekends and public holidays from April 4 through November 1, and daily from June through September.
A day pass (Pass Journée) costs €20, with each additional adult paying just €5. Without the pass, a one-way ticket from Nice to Tende costs €14.40.
Tickets are available through the SNCF Connect or TER ZOU! apps and websites. The 9:32am from Nice-Ville is the only departure with an on-board guide.
In the winter, the line becomes the Train des Neiges Castérino, linking Nice to Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende with a ski shuttle connection to the Castérino Nordic center.