Who hasn’t dreamed of the era of steam, grand trains, the Orient Express with those elegantly dressed women in carefully cut dresses, and the poetry of slowness and smoke where the locomotive and the landscape disappear?
This summer, the train des Pignes invites us to this dream. From Puget Théniers to Annot, the already so typical line takes us back to the past. The gleaming wooden carriages, wooden benches, third class. The locomotive spits out its impatience, the boilers are under pressure, and as in the past, its mouth swallows coal. The men in midnight blue uniforms, the cap in the same gavroche style, and faces blackened by soot.
The station master has given the signal and the convoy starts, rattling and out of breath. It is a little before eleven o’clock and here we go; we cross the Var, leaving the Alpes Maritimes and the County of Nice for the Alpes de Hautes Provence and Provence.
First stop: Entrevaux or Glandèves for history lovers. We arrive there in a quarter of an hour. We won’t really have time to visit the medieval city, already our train departs again, heading for Annot. It’s lunch time, and we have three hours to visit this village, the goal of our journey. “Annot is discovered and never forgotten,” said a Provençal poet.
We must admit, this definition is well deserved. This steam train journey allowed us to relive this period of railway history, a discovery for most of us and a pleasant memory for the older ones.
This steam train journey is possible every Sunday from May to October, as well as on Fridays from July 18 to August 15.
Thierry Jan
