There are faster and more affordable ways to get from Venice to Paris, but most of them don’t involve low-cost airlines, plastic cutlery, or atmosphere, and none like Belmond’s train, the Venice Simplon Orient Express. The classic train is full of surprises from the moment you arrive at the platform. Trust me, I would know. For the past 10 years, I’ve been taking photos of the vintage beauty every time I pass through Venice’s Santa Lucia train station. It never gets old.
But this time, I wasn’t a bystander. I was a guest on what many would call a “dream trip” – a train trip from Venice to Paris, with a new boarding stop in Rome, that I’ve been dreaming of ever since I saw the 1959 Marilyn Monroe movie. I like it hot (a comedy about jumping on a train to Florida in disguise) and Sidney Lumet’s 1974 Murder on the Orient Express.
Belmont begins its journey even before arriving at the platform. At 6:30 a.m. on the day of departure, my husband and I were met in the lobby of Hotel Flora, an accommodation we had arranged ourselves as a prelude to our 1930s travel experience. (Belmond offers to book passengers into luxury hotels, but it is not a prerequisite for the train experience.) The 30-room, family-run hotel is a time capsule of old Venice, with Murano chandeliers, frescoed ceilings, and turn-of-the-century furniture. From our hotel on picturesque Via Marzo in Venice’s San Marco district, a Belmond representative took us by water taxi across the lagoon to Santa Lucia train station.
We waited on the platform for a magical, cinematic moment. I waited for the steam to rise as the Venice-Simplon-Orient Express train came in. The main engine was the Italian FS E.403, an Italian workhorse locomotive dating back to the early 2000s, pulling 16 gold-trimmed midnight blue passenger cars. This is a heartwarming detail from Belmondo. Local locomotives restored in each country take the lead.
As soon as you get on board, you’ll travel through time in an instant. The wooden panels and polished brass details glowed with incandescence. The vehicles are narrower and more compact than their modern counterparts. “It was created in a time when people were short,” laughed Matthew Orier, in-car quality manager for the Venice Simplon-Orient Express. “Everything has been kept to the original design.”
Paying homage to the original design and details is what’s best about the Venice Simplon Orient Express. The train’s 16 cars were built between 1926 and 1949. CInternational Sleeping Wagon Company, A Belgian-founded French company that defined the golden age of rail travel by setting new standards of luxury on trains. The vehicle was eventually recommissioned during World War II as a hospital and floating hotel, before being forgotten in a depot. In the late 1970s, American entrepreneur James B. Sherwood sought them out and restored each to its Art Deco glory. By 1982, the perfectly restored Venice Simplon Orient Express was back on track.
Ollier pointed to the original coal furnaces, which are still fed coal by hand to heat each car. The staff uniforms (double-buttoned jackets, waistcoats, and peaked hats in a shade close to midnight blue) reflect those of the 1930s, as does the typical white-gloved service (minus the actual white gloves), a living homage to a time when rail travel was often more elegant.
Everyone on board
Traveling on a Belmond train is a sensory experience. The first thing you notice is the rhythm and sway of the train, more erratic than today’s new generation of maglev trains, then the sound, a clicking, percussive sound, and finally the smell, that pungent, metallic smell of the brakes. Everyone is stylishly dressed, some in 1930s style (think three-piece suits with tails and hot-and-silk top dresses adorned with feathery boas). It was so gorgeous that I couldn’t help but say old-fashioned phrases like “This is the bee’s knees.” (English is mainly spoken on the train.)
During the 30-hour journey (in our case extended to a glorious 40 hours thanks to railway construction and route changes), there’s fortunately not much to do on the train, there’s nowhere to rush to, and no need to worry about when you’ll arrive. That’s exactly what matters. In the words of Emerson, it’s all about the journey, not the destination.
Time is spent wandering around, meeting the passengers (in our case, who looked like Fitzgerald characters, including an award-winning audiobook narrator, two Caribbean plastics industry magnates, a Los Angeles TV producer, and a multigenerational French family) and relaxing in various areas of the train, from the cabin to the dining car to the bar car.
We enjoyed a French inspired meal in all three vintage dining vehicles. Elegant L’Oriental (1927), Polaris (1926), And my favorite, the Art Deco masterpiece Cote d’Azur (1926), with blue panels and original Rene Lalique glass decoration. I enjoyed a lovely smoked salmon breakfast served in the dining car. Also, one morning we had breakfast in the suite. This was less formal and featured poached eggs and of course excellent French bread and butter. The dinners were my favorites, especially the lobster entree, which, like every other meal, was prepared in a precise French manner, with an emphasis on delicious ingredients cooked to perfection.
After dinner, we enjoyed champagne cocktails, lobster rolls, and singalongs in the velvety bar Car 3674, before returning to our suite called Les Montagnes., Restored sleeper cabin with double bed, sofa and private shower. (Unlike suites, standard cabins faithfully recreate a 1930s setting, with upper and lower bunks, sinks, and a shared bathroom down the hallway.)
Up to 16 vehicles travel on the rails. Among them is the rare L’Observatoire, a vintage car reimagined by artist JR. The entire vehicle is transformed into a private suite with a bedroom, library, lounge and circular skylight available only on special request. For our trip, it remained.
root
Our Venice Simplon Orient Express train was scheduled to travel from Venice to Verona, Rome, Chiasso, Switzerland, and finally Paris. The option to board the train in Rome is a new option for this classic journey from Belmondo. Due to the unpredictability of traveling on secondary tracks (construction delays, other trains taking priority, various congestion and train traffic issues, etc.), our journey lasted 40 hours and gave us a deeper insight into the Italian landscape.
We set off as the sun rose over Venice’s lagoon and slowly headed south along the Adriatic coast to the secluded beaches of Le Marche, before turning inland over the rolling green hills of Umbria. We headed through Lazio to Roma Ostiense, one of Rome’s second stations and the official destination on our itinerary. At the station (and at every station), the same phenomenon occurs every time. On the platform people smile, wave and take pictures of our gorgeous train. From Rome we headed north to Pisa, making an unexpected stop along the way while the conductor prepared a new route. No one cared. We were singing Frank Sinatra songs at the bar.
We slept through the start and stop and woke up in Chiasso a few hours later than expected. From there we entered the Swiss Alpine valley and then drove through Strasbourg. More delays were announced, but Belmond accommodated us by seating us at a bonus dinner. By the time I arrived at Austerlitz station in Paris, it was pitch black and almost midnight. It felt like I had been on the train for days instead of 40 hours, and I welcomed the extra time in a bygone era.
There are no ground sightseeing or additional experiences on a Venice-Paris or Rome-Paris trip. And I won’t get off the train unless I really have to. During my trip, two couples got off the train early. One group got off in Rome because of a bad flu, and the other, after a long delay in Basel, decided it would be faster to get home. The rest of us happily spent the extra time.
How to pack and what to wear
Venice Simplon Orient Express is both a rolling gala and a fashion show for those who like to dress up. There’s no need to pack a lot. Pack wisely. There is a dress code, casual chic during the day and formal at night. Our journey was a catwalk of silks, sequins, boas, stilettos, velvet loafers, and black ties. Evening wear ranged from black-on-black suits John Wick to Marlene Dietrich and white-worthy full-length backless dress casablanca Inspired tuxedo. My favorite was the gentleman wearing an authentic 1930’s top hat and tails.
Packing is more like the adage “less is more” than it is an art, and Belmond provides precise instructions on the amount of luggage allowed and dress code. For a two-day trip, pack a soft overnight or weekend bag. We brought an away weekender bag and one garment bag. This was enough for three pairs of shoes, one suit, one cocktail dress, two daytime changes and toiletries.
A pleasant farewell
While Belmond would happily round out your trip with a stay at one of its hotels in Venice and Paris, we chose Hotel Castille, a hidden gem near Place Vendôme in Paris, a train-like blend of Italian hospitality and Parisian style. This was the perfect postscript to the trip, especially since it was just a short walk from the Musée d’Orsay, a Parisian train station turned museum designed by Victor Laloux. After 40 hours on the world’s most beautiful train, it’s only natural that you’ll end up at another station.
