sasha_g

Hi,
I want to travel from Nice to Fontan - Saorge and back and am trying to figure out the train schedules for June, 2009.
If I take the Train des Merveilles - which also follows the same route, where can I get their schedule? Their web site is way beyond date - the train schedule there is for 2003. I ve written to them, but no reply yet.

I have also gone to http://www.ter-sncf.com/paca/ but it's in French and is giving me a different schedule. (the english version is not working)

Can anyone help?

StCirq

According to their site (http://www.trainstouristiques-ter.co...ce/contenu.htm) it runs weekends and holidays from April 1 to beginning of July. I don't see that the date on here is 2003, but maybe I missed that.

sasha_g

I dont read French & somewhere, at the end of the page showing timetables, there was 13 December 2003 written. Hence I thought maybe, it's 2003 schedule.
Does it only run on weekends & holidays!?
But I managed to dig out some info. from http://www.tendemerveilles.com/Infos...erveilles.html and don't think I saw 'weekends & holidays only' mentioned there.
It says: Tous les jours du 1er juin au 30 septembre, which as per my limited french means everyday from 1st June to 30th September.
I may be wrong, let me check again.

thanks.

scatcat

I have traveled to Tende on the Train de Merveilles, but it was about 2 years ago. I went on a Sunday and there was a guide on the train pointing out various points of interest. It departed Nice Ville at 9:00 AM. I really enjoyed the ride, lots of nice scenery.

StCirq

Here's another site: http://www.tendemerveilles.com/Infos...erveilles.html

Says it departs daily at 9 am. Ticket prices are for 2009, so I assume it's up to date.

Christina

That website www.tendemerveills.com clearly states on the first page that it runs every day of the year. Whether it is correct or not, who knows, as the TER one says otherwise.

That schedule which is a PDF file on trainstourtiques-ter.com IS from 2003, it does say that, you are right. Maybe the same schedule still pertains and they never scanned a new one, but it seems to say it runs all year at 12:40 (leaving Nice), but that in the summer and weekends, etc., it also runs at 9:24 and has a tourist commentary on that run. I've also seen elsewhere that it says it leaves at 9 am and is only in the summer.

The Merveilles thing was an attempt to make it touristic, so I suspect the issue may be they only have that tourist commentary thing in the summer/weekends but that it runs all year.

sasha_g

Thanks everyone. I guess the best thing to do will be to go to Nice tourist office a day before & figure it out. But right now, it also seems to me that it runs everyday in summer & starts at 9.00 from Nice Gare SNCF.

@ scatcat - since you have made that journey, any suggestion as to which is the best village to visit on this route? I was thinking of Fontan - Saorge or Tende - but any other village you'd like to suggest? I will have time to only visit one village - since I need to be back in Cannes by 6 in the evening.

LarryJ

Below is the official website for these trains. To go to Saorge or elsewhere you don't have to take the "Train des Merveilles" as there are other trains that run this route between Nice and Cuneo, Italy. I take these trains several times a year. I especially like Saorge and Breil sur Roya.

http://www.trainprovence.com/

Larry J

scatcat

I only went to Tende. The train ride itself was my main reason. Tende is a small village. On Sunday a few shops were open. A couple of bakeries and cafes. Our train only stopped there for about 1 hour. Some of the villages along the way are not close to the train station. You may want to check into that. I think you can get off and back on another train if you would like to visit one of the villages. I just wanted something to do on Sunday and I really enjoyed it.