About this journey

Curitiba's station sits on a plateau at 932 metres above sea level, the starting point of the Ramal de Curitiba — part of the historic Estrada de Ferro Curitiba Paranaguá — operated here as a tourist service by Serra Verde Express aboard the Litorina railcar.

The line was inaugurated in 1885, making it the first railway in the state of Paraná. Its opening transformed the region dramatically: Morretes, the destination, had thrived on erva-mate milling, but the railway's arrival in 1885 disrupted those trade routes and reshaped the town's economy entirely. The route descends from the plateau through the Parque Estadual Pico do Marumbi, crossing the largest preserved stretch of Atlantic Forest in Brazil, with the Pico do Marumbi rising to 1,539 metres above the canopy to the east.

Morretes lies approximately 70 km from Curitiba, tucked between the Serra do Mar and the Paraná coast. Founded as a settlement in 1721 and elevated to a municipality in 1841, it is a colonial river town best known for its barreado, a slow-cooked beef dish prepared in clay pots. The journey spans two distinct worlds — the Araucaria pine forests of Curitiba's highland plateau and the dense Atlantic Forest lowlands surrounding a town that the railway once diminished and now sustains through tourism.