News from Italy
A fairy tale Orient Express
di Andira Vitale
We are travelling to the past of the Eastern Express, which brought the tales of 1001 nights to its lucky guests. Are you ready? Here we go…
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time, a fairyland called the Orient Express was in motion. Its borders stretched from Paris to Vienna, from Budapest to Milan, Istanbul and other capitals, telling a different tale at every stop. The curtains are made of silk from this land of fairy tales; dominated by cobalt-coloured furniture, dark wood; the sofas are made of velvet and silk; the tall glasses are made of crystal; the tables are made of silver. In the bar of this fairy tale country, which set off slowly like an elegant bride, when the sound of the grand piano in the dim light rose, the curved bottles would start to open, the train would start flying onto the rails and approaching the mountains to be climbed. And memories that will never be erased, written together with insatiable pleasures, are lined up one after the other. And every moment turns into a fairy tale like a postcard.
The first of these postcards reached land on October 4, 1841. On that historic day, the whistle of luxury, comfort and dreamland blew, and the locomotive glided slowly along the tracks. The “Grand Hotel on rails” was a perfectly heated luxury train, allowing you to go to Paris and reach Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) in 77 hours of travel. Initially, the Orient Express consisted of two service carriages (luggage and staff cabins), two sleeping carriages that could accommodate up to 40 passengers and a restaurant carriage with a first-rate chef who varied the menu according to the countries crossed.
For the first time, a fast train (for the time) connected Western Europe with Eastern Europe, shortening distances and bringing people closer together. The Orient Express became famous for luxury, comfort and fine cuisine. It was frequented by royalty, nobles, diplomats and wealthy business people. The train only accommodated the first class, expressing the essence of the Belle Époque with trust in continuous progress, technology and financial solidity.
As we would expect, the first train’s departure was very spectacular. It was announced to the world as “The Magic Carpet to the Orient”. Nagelmackers has genuinely created a fairy tale. Mahogany and teak panels, carved walls, doors and compartments, sofas covered in soft Spanish leather with embroidered gold embossed patterns, curtains fastened with silk cords with gold thread tassels dangling, silk sheets, woollen blankets, down pillows, porcelain sinks in Italian marble, each toilet that is cleaned after use, thin crystal goblets, elegant porcelain, silver dinnerware, extremely well-trained, stylish and cleanly dressed employees, menus prepared by the best chefs of the period, and the best quality wines were all on this train.
Thomas Edward Lawrence
In 1909, a British student, Thomas Edward Lawrence, made his first voyage on the Orient Express en route to the Middle East to complete his thesis on crusader castles. This would be just the first in a long series of stays in the Arabian Peninsula that would transform Lawrence into Lawrence of Arabia.
Agent dancer Mata Hari
In the same years, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, a Dutch dancer and secret agent, better known as Mata Hari, was also travelling on the Orient Express and was sentenced to death for her espionage activities during the First World War.
Collector agent Robert Baden-Powell
Known as the founder of the Scout Movement, Robert Baden-Powell was also a spy for the British Secret Service. He often travelled on the Orient Express disguised as a butterfly collector, which allowed him to go to otherwise inaccessible places and hide in the wings of butterflies, drawing maps of enemy fortifications that proved vital during the First World War.
Magical atmosphere
And this magical train, from one border to the other, reduced the time from 2’5 months to 80 hours with a spring car. The train was crossing the Alps, arriving in Istanbul after an 80-hour journey via Budapest and Bucharest. Diplomats, civil servants and journalists of French, German, Austrian and Ottoman origin were travelling on the first expedition of the Orient Express, which started from Paris in 1883. Edmond About, a reporter for The Times Newspaper, who was among the passengers, published his journey memories in his book “De Ponteise à Stamboul” in 1884. Who is not among the famous passengers who travel by train from Paris to Varna Port and then arrive in Istanbul by ship? Members of all European dynasties, the wealthiest business people, movie and television stars, and the upper class, whose every move the media loves to talk about and whose lives are enticed, have come. Our train saw two world wars, so politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, high-ranking soldiers and spies were also found on the train. King George V of the United Kingdom, King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, and King George II of Belgium. Leopold, French President Paul Dechanel, Spy Mata Hari, Spy Lawrence of Arabia, US President Theodore Roosevelt, US President Harry Truman, and Indian Independence Movement leader Mahatma Gandhi are among these names. Let’s not forget the writers and filmmakers, of course. Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, Edward Stirling, Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Strauss, Maria Callas, and Greta Garbo are just a few. Scientist Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, were among those who preferred to live in this fairy tale land.
Not only essential names lived in the Orient Express, which offered a magical atmosphere to its guests with its leather-covered ceiling, silk and velvet curtains, and soft carpets. It has also been the subject of movies and novels.
The encounter of people who did not know each other before in the magnificent background of the train, in an environment where they could not escape temporarily, created a very striking resource for the writers.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence’s famous novel, which was banned in England for over thirty years, Lady Chatterley told her father on the Orient Express that she was pregnant. Of course, it matters because she got pregnant not from her husband but from her lover.
The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars
Maurice Dekobra, who sold best before and after the Second World War, also passed through our train. Her best-known book is called The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars. Published in 1927, it sold so much that it ran print-on-print for the next thirty years. The characters of Dekobra, which are not very common in real life, were created to build more melodrama.
Stamboul Train
It was Graham Greene’s job in 1932 to write the story of a real-life man and woman meeting on a train and making an exciting journey. Istanbul Train (Stamboul Train) made Greene one of the most influential writers.
Murder on the Orient Express
Two years after the Istanbul Train, Agatha Christie’s famous Murder on the Orient Express, described as the best detective novel of all time, came. Agatha Christie was also a regular on our train. Her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, with whom he was married at the time, worked for the British intelligentsia for many years, travelled to the Middle East a lot due to this duty, and Agatha accompanied him. Thus, she could use many of the conspiracies she witnessed in his fiction. The novel, filmed in 1974, has been shot as a movie many times.
James Bond: From Russia, With Love
After Agatha Christie, after the Second World War, Ian Fleming’s famous James Bond series, From Russia, With Love, was published. The novel was published in 1956, four years after the first book in the series came out. Fleming’s book, in which the train is depicted very realistically in the last chapters, has also been described as the best of the series. In 1965, it had sold twenty-nine million units in just one year. In addition, millions of people have watched James Bond movies, which are considered better than books.
Of course, other novels have also been written. Published in 1937, Cecil Roberts’ Victoria Four-Thirty got its name from the train departure time that provides transportation to the Orient Express by connecting the ferry. Dutch writer A. Den Doolard published a historical novel called Orient Express with a Macedonian background in the same years.
Lawrence Durrell, famous for the Alexandria Quartet, is one of those who cannot resist the charm of our train. He stopped by our train in his humorous book Esprit de Corps- Sketches from Diplomatic Life, which he wrote based on the memories of a diplomat friend. Eric Ambler, who his contemporary Graham Greene described as “our best thriller writer without question”, also got his share of the brilliance of the Orient Express. The thriller novel The Mask of Dimitrios, which he wrote, started with the fire that broke out during the liberation of Izmir and passed through the train, reaching the Balkans and Paris.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Lady Vanishes
Ethel Lina White’s The Wheels Spin, an Orient Express-themed novel, did not become a bestseller but was the first to be adapted into a best film, so much so that Alfred Hitchcock bought the film rights and shot his famous masterpiece The Lady Vanishes, based on the book.
Around the world in 80 days
Another world-famous production of the Orient Express is “Around the World in 80 Days”. Making a bet that he will tour the world in 80 days on a claim, Mr Fogg, in the film, in which Fogg gets on the train in Istanbul, has been adapted into movies and TV series many times in various years. In fact, ‘Around the World in 80 Days’, made in 1919, is the first movie of the Orient Express to be screened. However, since the basis of the script is not based on the Orient Express, the first movie about the famous train is considered “The Disappearing Woman”.
Orient Express also wrote stories!
The secret of wagon number 2419: The Orient Express’s voyages were stopped during the First World War. The Orient Express, which was withdrawn from the expedition to the Compiegne Forest in France until the war’s end, witnessed its first historical event. One of the treaties that ended World War I was signed on train number 2419 of the Orient Express. The wagon, which is seen as the symbol of the victory of the French against the Germans, went down in history as a monument of victory.
Simplon Orient Express: The Orient Express, off the rails during the First World War, started its voyages again in 1919. This time, he was in the presence of his passengers with two innovations. The Simplon Tunnel, which opened in 1905 with a small addition to its original name, became known as the “Simplon Orient Express”. The route of the train was another innovation. Germany and Austria’s stations, the war’s losers, were removed from the route. In this way, the train started to reach Istanbul in 58 hours via Paris, Lausanne, Milan and Venice.
A legend under the snow: In January 1929, snow trapped the Orient Express near Constantinople (Istanbul) for days. Passengers willing to die of hunger and cold escaped the train by digging a tunnel in the snow. This incident inspired author Agatha Christie’s 1934 mystery novel, Murder on the Orient Express.
In 1930, the Toros Express was put into service. It runs from Istanbul to Aleppo and Beirut and connects to Jerusalem, Cairo, or Baghdad. In 1932, the connection with Central Europe was restored, and the Arlberg-Orient Express departed, reaching Vienna via Tyrol.
Josephine Baker’s pep concerts: In 1930, the Taurus Express was inaugurated, going from Constantinople to Aleppo and Beirut, with connections to Jerusalem, Cairo, or Baghdad. In 1932, the connection with central Europe was restored, and the Arlberg-Orient Express departed, reaching Vienna through the Tyrol.
In 1931, the Orient Express was bombed when, near Budapest, a bomb caused it to fall 30 meters off a viaduct. The singer Josephine Baker was travelling on the train, and to calm the survivors, she improvised a concert among the wounded.
The sad end of wagon 2419: During World War II, train services were interrupted again. During World War II, which started with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, when Germany entered France on June 14, 1940, Adolf Hitler found wagon number 2419. The Nazis had the French sign the surrender treaty of France on the 2419 carriage of the Orient Express to get a rematch from 22 years ago. The wagon was later taken to Germany, where the French displayed it. In the spring of 1945, when the Nazis realized they would succumb to the war, they worried that Germany’s surrender would be signed on the 2419 carriage of the Orient Express. Thereupon, on Hitler’s orders, the SS unit destroyed the wagon.
Rumours of the Orient Express
Since there were kings, princes, princesses, politicians, writers and agents among the guests of the fairy tale train, their gossip was present!
It was among the rumours that the Bulgarian King Ferdinand locked himself in the bathroom for fear of being assassinated during his trip, and that the Belgian King Leopold II boarded the train with the desire to infiltrate a Turkish harem in Istanbul.
While another Bulgarian King, Boris I, used the train on Bulgarian territory and was speeding at excessive speed, it was reported that one of the French presidents, Paul Deschanel, fell from the Orient Express at night and was rescued with a minor abrasion.
Although Orient Express resumed its expeditions after the war, it lost its importance over time due to various restrictions. In 1977, the demand decreased, and the flights stopped due to the competition arising from air transportation and the fact that many countries were on the route where the Cold War was experienced. The expedition dated 27 May 1977 was the last expedition of the famous Orient Express between Paris and Istanbul. Its removal from the campaign further increased the value of Orient Express. Orient Express has become a collector’s area of interest as it hosted historical events in the two World Wars, and many celebrities travelled. Wanting to turn this interest into cash, the company put the wagons up for auction in Monte Carlo. A British collector purchased some of the train’s wagons, while the Royal Palace Museum of Morocco purchased others.
In 1983, the 100th anniversary of the Orient Express’s first voyage, 100 famous people from various countries participated in its extraordinary journey. The Orient Express remained a Paris-Vienna daily service until the route was shortened in 2007 and finally cancelled on 14 December 2009.
The Orient Express returned to Italy.
And back to Italy, the legendary and romantic vintage train on which the story of slow travel par excellence flows and is told, seeing the world from the window. The train, which is a work of art in itself, an art deco masterpiece expertly preserved by Belmond (joined its portfolio of luxury hotels and travel Belmond Train, Europe), finally, in 2023 (on April 27 first departure ) returned to the Eternal City of the Grand Tour with the new itinerary that connects Paris crossing Italy with stops for embarkation also in Florence and Venice.
The carriages are originals from the 1920s, adorned with marquetry by the art deco master René Prou and etched glass panels by René Lalique. The train comprises sleeping cars dating back to the 1920s and 1930s and four elegant day cars, including the three sumptuous dining cars, L’Oriental, Etoile Du Nord, Côte d’Azur and the boutique corner. Passengers can choose between twin cabins or a suite cabin, consisting of two connecting twin cabins that can be used as a living area and the other as a sleeping area. Almost dazzling is the impact of one of the six “large suites” with an interior inspired by the cities of Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Vienna, Budapest and Prague, with large spaces, double beds, living rooms and private bathrooms. A time machine on rails allows you to go back and live a truly incredible experience.
The luxury and relaxation are constantly bathed in sips of champagne, from the breakfast served in the cabin, to the afternoon tea, to the elegant canapés offered during the aperitif in the bar carriage 3674, the warm heart of the train, while the French chef Jean Imbert, of all the culinary offer of the train, offers every day gastronomic experiences and itineraries that combine the grandeur of the golden age of rail travel with seasonality and the use of excellent products from local artisans present along all the routes for always different tastings inspired by the moment. Furthermore, in the 3674 bar carriage, fun and conviviality are complemented by signature cocktails and the live notes of the pianist that resonate until late at night. Part of the charm of a trip on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is the atmosphere that echoes the glories of other times when the passengers contribute to the creation, almost as if it were a show in which a scene is played out every hour. For example, wear an evening dress (it is mandatory) for the refined dinner. Returning in the evening, the cabin was prepared and “reconditioned” to spend an unforgettable night on the tracks towards the destination city. Just like when in those silk and velvet-lined carriages, bejewelled ladies in long dresses paraded by, and tuxedo-clad gentlemen played cards until dawn.
And, La Dolce Vita Orient Express, the first Italian-made luxury train, aims to revive the glamour of the classic version and the romanticised notion of Italy’s dolce vita, or “sweet life,” while promoting slow tourism.
Born of a visionary collaboration between Arsenale and Orient Express and supported by Fondazione FS Italiane and FS Treni Turistici Italiani of the FS Group, this pivotal project signals rail renaissance as the ultimate luxury. La Dolce Vita Orient Express marks a new era in the Italian tourism landscape, offering travellers an exclusive experience that fully embraces the essence of Made in Italy. It celebrates the country’s cultural, scenic and gastronomic heritage, guiding guests on a unique journey through Italy’s most emblematic destinations.
The La Dolce Vita Orient Express itineraries are designed to tell the story of Italy through its most iconic landscapes. The Routes, traversing 14 Italian regions, offer eight exclusive itineraries for discerning international travellers. From the canals of Venice to the coves of Portofino, the medieval charm of Siena to the sun-drenched stones of Matera and from Montalcino’s famed vineyards to the truffle paths of Nizza Monferrato, each journey is a celebration of Italy’s rich cultural and natural heritage. Sicily reveals itself in stages – Catania, Palermo, Taormina… each capturing a different hue of the island’s timeless allure. Thoughtfully designed to embrace the philosophy of slow travel, these routes invite guests to connect deeply with local traditions, flavours and landscapes.
Do you also have a dream? There is room for every dream in this carriage… Have a good trip!