Le Train Bleu from Paris to Nice gets ready for passengers

The iconic Le Train Bleu, a legend of French night trains connecting Paris to Nice, is finally back on the tracks.

Le Train Bleu is ready to return in a revamped guise thanks to a large investment that made the return of the historic night line possible.  The name by which we know it today is a recent title. For its first journeys, the train was called Calais-Méditerranée-Express because the train departed from Calais to Menton, passing through cities such as Paris, Marseille and Nice.  The name Le Train Bleu was given to it later because of its colors: the carriages are blue and gold.

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Le Train Bleu: when does it leave?

Le Train Bleu’s journey of recommencement will start on April 16th at 8:52 pm from the Gare d'Austerlitz station in Paris to arrive in Nice the following morning at 9 am.  Le Train Bleu is a train unlike any other, and one that has left its mark on history.  Suffice it to say that Agatha Christie made it the protagonist of one of her novels, "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and that its name was also given to a ballet by Sergej Djaligev.  If we look back to the years when Le Train Bleu was in its heyday, we can catch a glimpse of iconic characters like Coco Chanel and Grace Kelly on the locomotive.

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Le Train Bleu’s new look

The iconic French night train has been renovated and updates thanks to a forty million euro investment.  The decline that began in the 1980s led to the line's suppression at the end of 2007. But now the train is ready to start again with the daily Paris-Nice route.

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Its fifty carriages will certainly not lack the comforts that have made the train famous, but the past has been brought into the modern era: the train will also be equipped with Wi-Fi.  Prices will start at 19 euros for classic seats and will be around 39 euros for four-person bunks in first class. The transport is also a nod to the environment, as the restoration has also led to improvements in terms of consumption, pollution and even noise reduction. 

The restoration of Le Train Bleu is hopefully just the beginning of the return to evening runs and it is expected that as early as December of this year the Vienna-Munich-Paris line will be established.  If all goes according to plan, the Zurich-Rome line will follow in 2022 and the Paris-Berlin line in 2023.