OK... I have to out myself here! We didn't actually ride the Train Vapeur de Pignes. In this case, we decided to exercise the cheaper (and more adventurous) tack of train-chasing the Train de Pignes. Starting with a bit of lolly-gagging around station in Puget-Théniers while paying customers boarded the train, then racing up the road toward Entrevaux and Annot in hopes of a few photo-ops of all the huffing and puffing! Amazing! These rails are actually a commuter line that runs from Nice up to the city of Digne-les-Bains, which by the way, would be worth the trip just to ride up this scenic route in the daily diesel powered rail-cars. But on Sundays in the summertime, they fire up this old steam locomotive (apparently built in the 20s in Cassel, Germany) and make the twenty-kilometer run from Puget-Théniers to Annot - Maybe not the best part of the run, but a very good part of the run. We had just done a steam train ride in Provence a few days before, so we didn't have the compunction to buy a ticket to ride on this one. But had we done so, we would have missed out on the chance to photograph the 'little-engine-that-does.' I'm sure it's a great view from the train, and I suspect we'll buy a ticket and ride it one day, but just seeing that living, breathing locomotive pull the train up this gorge is one of life's richest moments. Ride it. Chase it. Photograph it. But only on Sundays! Worth planning your holiday around this! And much safer than the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona! read more

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