The Orient Express La Dolce Vita

Ticket sale starts for Italian Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’

The Orient Express La Dolce Vita Maxime d'Angeac & Martin Darzacq | Orient Express La Dolce Vita

As of this week, reservations can be made for a new luxury Orient Express train in Italy. From 2024, the redesigned luxury train will be back on the tracks onwards, consisting of recently discovered classic carriages from from the 1920s and 1930s.

Travellers can relive the glamour of the legendary train aboard 17 original Orient Express cars dating back to the interbellum with the Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’. A journey aboard that train typically takes 1 night and 2 days or 2 nights and 3 days within Italy, and more for international trips.

In cooperation with hotel group Accor, it offers multiple itineraries in Italy including to cities such as Rome, Palermo and Venice. Being a ‘high-life’ and luxury train with accommodation, beverages, on-board entertainment and excursions included, prices start at 2,000 euros per person per night. Journeys to other countries will follow later with connections to Paris, Split and Istanbul, the city probably most associated with the Orient Express service.

Legendary train cars resurfaced

The set of carriages that will be used were most recently in use on the “Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express”, a train inaugurated in the early 1980s by Swiss tour operator and businessman Albert Glatt, who bought up the historic train cars from the historic Orient Express. It ran between Zurich and Istanbul.

Under the name of “Extrême-Orient-Express” the train also made the longest journey ever between Paris and Tokyo in 1992, before stopping a few years later. The train cars subsequently vanished. In addition to the ‘Venice Simplon-Orient-Express’, it was one of the revived services in the spirit of the original Orient Express launched in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL), founded by Georges Nagelmackers.

In 2015, Arthur Mettetal, a researcher who specialises in industrial history, conducted a worldwide inventory of the Orient Express cars for the French railways SNCF. Over the course of his research, he discovered a video of a train in full motion, posted by an anonymous person on YouTube. “We knew that the Glatt train existed somewhere, but nobody knew exactly where. While deciphering the video, we saw the sign for the “Malaszewicze” station, a name widely used in Poland”, said Mettetal. With a bit of persistence, Google Maps and Google 3D put him on the right track. The car roofs, visible on the aerial views, were indeed those of the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express, neatly lined up on a distant marshalling yard near the border between Belarus and Poland, around 4 hours by car from Warsaw.

Transporting the classis Orient Express cars from Poland to France
Transporting the classis Orient Express cars from Poland to France, image: Xavier Antoinet | Orient Express

Partly preserved, the interiors of the cars revealed Morrison and Nelson marquetry, as well as the Lalique panels, emblematic of the Art Deco style, still intact and engraved with the glassware House’s signature motif of “blackbirds and grapes”. After two years of negotiations, the owner of the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express gave up his treasured train to company Orient Express in July 2018, which will run the Dolce Vita trains from 2024. A convoy of trucks escorted by several police vehicles brought the 17 cars – 12 sleeping cars, 1 restaurant, 3 lounges and 1 van – to France.

Lounge car of the Orient Express La Dolce Vita, image: Maxime d’Angeac / Orient Express La Dolce Vita, Accor

Inspired by the 1920s, the reimagined design of the train was made by architect Maxime d’Angeac. “The rebirth of the Orient Express is a technological challenge, meeting scientific, artistic and technical criteria, where the entire project has been conceived as a work of art”, said d’Angeac.

“From the nuts and bolts stamped with Orient Express’ signature to the innovative concept of the suites, an exact science of detail will allow travellers to rediscover the great splendour of the Orient Express. Entrusted to the best artisans and decorators specialising in their unique fields, this embassy of French luxury will unveil a setting of absolute refinement, faithful to the art of tailoring. It will be an incomparable train travel experience, imagined through a contemporary vision of comfort and extreme luxury.”

Further reading:

Author: Esther Geerts

Former Editor RailTech.com

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Ticket sale starts for Italian Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’ | RailTech.com
The Orient Express La Dolce Vita

Ticket sale starts for Italian Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’

The Orient Express La Dolce Vita Maxime d'Angeac & Martin Darzacq | Orient Express La Dolce Vita

As of this week, reservations can be made for a new luxury Orient Express train in Italy. From 2024, the redesigned luxury train will be back on the tracks onwards, consisting of recently discovered classic carriages from from the 1920s and 1930s.

Travellers can relive the glamour of the legendary train aboard 17 original Orient Express cars dating back to the interbellum with the Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’. A journey aboard that train typically takes 1 night and 2 days or 2 nights and 3 days within Italy, and more for international trips.

In cooperation with hotel group Accor, it offers multiple itineraries in Italy including to cities such as Rome, Palermo and Venice. Being a ‘high-life’ and luxury train with accommodation, beverages, on-board entertainment and excursions included, prices start at 2,000 euros per person per night. Journeys to other countries will follow later with connections to Paris, Split and Istanbul, the city probably most associated with the Orient Express service.

Legendary train cars resurfaced

The set of carriages that will be used were most recently in use on the “Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express”, a train inaugurated in the early 1980s by Swiss tour operator and businessman Albert Glatt, who bought up the historic train cars from the historic Orient Express. It ran between Zurich and Istanbul.

Under the name of “Extrême-Orient-Express” the train also made the longest journey ever between Paris and Tokyo in 1992, before stopping a few years later. The train cars subsequently vanished. In addition to the ‘Venice Simplon-Orient-Express’, it was one of the revived services in the spirit of the original Orient Express launched in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL), founded by Georges Nagelmackers.

In 2015, Arthur Mettetal, a researcher who specialises in industrial history, conducted a worldwide inventory of the Orient Express cars for the French railways SNCF. Over the course of his research, he discovered a video of a train in full motion, posted by an anonymous person on YouTube. “We knew that the Glatt train existed somewhere, but nobody knew exactly where. While deciphering the video, we saw the sign for the “Malaszewicze” station, a name widely used in Poland”, said Mettetal. With a bit of persistence, Google Maps and Google 3D put him on the right track. The car roofs, visible on the aerial views, were indeed those of the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express, neatly lined up on a distant marshalling yard near the border between Belarus and Poland, around 4 hours by car from Warsaw.

Transporting the classis Orient Express cars from Poland to France
Transporting the classis Orient Express cars from Poland to France, image: Xavier Antoinet | Orient Express

Partly preserved, the interiors of the cars revealed Morrison and Nelson marquetry, as well as the Lalique panels, emblematic of the Art Deco style, still intact and engraved with the glassware House’s signature motif of “blackbirds and grapes”. After two years of negotiations, the owner of the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express gave up his treasured train to company Orient Express in July 2018, which will run the Dolce Vita trains from 2024. A convoy of trucks escorted by several police vehicles brought the 17 cars – 12 sleeping cars, 1 restaurant, 3 lounges and 1 van – to France.

Lounge car of the Orient Express La Dolce Vita, image: Maxime d’Angeac / Orient Express La Dolce Vita, Accor

Inspired by the 1920s, the reimagined design of the train was made by architect Maxime d’Angeac. “The rebirth of the Orient Express is a technological challenge, meeting scientific, artistic and technical criteria, where the entire project has been conceived as a work of art”, said d’Angeac.

“From the nuts and bolts stamped with Orient Express’ signature to the innovative concept of the suites, an exact science of detail will allow travellers to rediscover the great splendour of the Orient Express. Entrusted to the best artisans and decorators specialising in their unique fields, this embassy of French luxury will unveil a setting of absolute refinement, faithful to the art of tailoring. It will be an incomparable train travel experience, imagined through a contemporary vision of comfort and extreme luxury.”

Further reading:

Author: Esther Geerts

Former Editor RailTech.com

Add your comment

characters remaining.

Log in through one of the following social media partners to comment.