There are luxury trains… and then there is the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. The original Orient Express began running in 1883, but today’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express was launched in 1982 after American entrepreneur James Sherwood tracked down and painstakingly restored historic carriages from the 1920s and 30s. The result is less transportation and more travelling time machine… polished wood, intricate marquetry, Lalique glass, tiny corridors and liveried stewards who somehow make the whole thing feel completely natural. And that is really the point. You could certainly get across Europe faster… and considerably cheaper. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is very expensive. You aren’t really paying to get from A to B. You are paying for the increasingly rare chance to experience a bygone era of travel… and for a night or two, it works. The dress code is part of the magic. In a world where trainers seem to have become acceptable almost everywhere, there is something wonderfully decadent about a train where people properly dress. While travelling aboard with a lover would be beyond romantic, I travelled with my sister and found the whole thing wonderfully Agatha Christie magical. Although, happily, no one was murdered before breakfast.
Number of Cabins The train has Historic Cabins, Suites and six Grand Suites, as well as L’Observatoire, an extraordinary private carriage designed by French artist JR.
Sweet Suite The Grand Suites. There are six, each inspired by one of the great European cities associated with the train: Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Vienna, Prague and Budapest. Unlike the original Historic Cabins, the Grand Suites have private bathrooms, separate sleeping and lounging areas and considerably more room to spread out.
That said, there is something rather wonderful about travelling in one of the original Historic Cabins. They are small… very small… but that’s part of the romance. Your banquette becomes your bed while you’re at dinner, and suddenly living out of a beautifully restored 1920s railway compartment seems entirely reasonable.
Favorite Thing The Bar Car. No contest. Bar Car 3674 dates from 1931, with a beautiful mahogany bar, Art Deco details and, most importantly, a resident pianist. This was my Orient Express fantasy brought to life. Great cocktails, a piano player, everyone dressed for dinner and the train rattling through Europe outside the windows. I loved the black tie. There is something deliciously old-fashioned about getting dressed up simply to walk a few carriages down the train for dinner and cocktails. You don’t just travel on the Orient Express… you participate in it. Frankly, give me a cocktail, a piano and a room full of men in dinner jackets and I’m quite happy to keep circling Europe indefinitely.
Where It Goes The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express travels a changing collection of routes across Europe, with journeys linking cities including Paris, Venice, Florence, Vienna, Brussels and Istanbul. The classic Venice to Paris journey takes one night, while other itineraries combine time aboard the train with stays at Belmond hotels in Italy. The grande dame, however, is the five-night Istanbul to Paris journey. It travels from Istanbul through Romania and Hungary before reaching Paris, with overnight hotel stays in Bucharest and Budapest along the way. Excursions include Peleș Castle, sightseeing in Bucharest and Budapest and a cruise on the Danube. It is less a train ride and more a proper European journey… the sort of itinerary that makes you understand how the Orient Express became a legend in the first place. And yes… it has a price tag to match. This is emphatically not value travel. It is bucket-list travel.
Amenities This isn’t a hotel on wheels, and that’s precisely the appeal. There is 24-hour steward service, an onboard boutique and the wonderful Bar Car 3674 with cocktails and live piano music. There are three beautiful restaurant cars, Étoile du Nord, Côte d’Azur and L’Oriental, each with its own historic interiors. Dinner isn’t simply about the food. It’s the ceremony of getting dressed, walking through the narrow corridors, settling into an Art Deco dining car and watching Europe slip past the window. Breakfast is also served in the dining car rather than your cabin, so the theatre begins again in the morning… albeit with considerably less black tie. Historic Cabins have a washbasin but no private bathroom, while Suites and Grand Suites have their own bathrooms. There are no swimming pools, sprawling spas or enormous hotel gyms here. What you are buying is something much harder to replicate… the chance to dress beautifully, drink a proper cocktail at a piano bar, dine in a 1920s railway carriage and wake up somewhere else in Europe. For a little while, the golden age of travel feels very much alive.