The History of the Orient Express

Part One - Part Two

The Orient Express line is a byword for luxury, romance, history, and excitement. As the train wends it way through some of Europe's most romantic cities, it evokes the passions of a long gone era.

The "Orient Express" proper runs from Calais and Paris to Bucharest, in Romania. It passes through France Germany Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania. The Simplon Orient Express travels further south through Switzerland, Italy and Yugoslavia, to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople.

The Orient Express was the first great and truly International train, running from Paris to Constantinople. The service, which began in 1886, was the first to connect Europe with one train. The route was serviced before this time but not by one direct train. The journey was a tortuously slow tedious and dirty trail through the different countries. The passengers were required to disembark and walk across all national borders.

Then one man, a Belgium, Georges Nagelmackers had a grandiose vision, to run one train and uncouple the engine at the border, change that, and allow the passengers' luxurious sojourn to continue. He persuaded the border guards to embark on the train and carry out the formalities in the comfort of the train.

The original swish compartments were not like a train the whole concept was a rolling luxury hotel. The standard of service and luxury available far exceeded anything that the finest five star hotels in Europe could offer. The Orient Express was viewed not as mode of travel, but a rolling adventure shrouded in mystery. All the train compartments were totally private which meant that you could have a secret assignation and no one could have been any the wiser. The stewards catered to your every whim, in your compartment fully equipped with a bathroom facilities and comfortable beds.

The dining cars supplied extraordinary cuisine, the finest foods for the most discerning epicure. However should you have required privacy then the steward would bring to you whatever your heart desired in the cabin.

During the first twenty or thirty years of the train the route was not static, it varied according to the season, which added an extra frisson to the journey as you were never certain quite what you would see. Only in the mid nineteenth century did the journey evolve and stabilise into today's route.

At the end of the railway track towers Istanbul, Asia Minor. The enormously wealthy city at the heart of the spice trade in the Ottoman Empire. The difficulty was that in those days Istanbul had a level of sophistication and glamour, but no style. Nagelmacker had to construct the Pera Palace Hotel, which even today stands for a fantasy retreat in Istanbul. Even before the Great War 1914 -1918 the train had become the most famous in Europe. The war itself stopped the train in its tracks for four years, as the journey out of Paris and through Belgium would have traversed the Western Front. The Balkans was less than stable and Austro Hungary was at odds with Russia, and then Turkey became involved as well.

Bizarrely it was to be the conflict in Europe that ensured the train route survived. The cessation of the war did not bring harmony to Western Europe and continuing administrative niggles with Germany and the Austro Hungarian Empire forced the company to revise its route and schedule.

Out of necessity the Simplon Orient Express was born, in April 1919. It was called the Simplon partly to differentiate it from the "old" Orient express, and partly because it ran through the Simplon Tunnel. Instead of running through Central Europe it ran through Switzerland and through Italy. It comes down the Northern slopes of Italy, to Venice, Trieste, Zagreb, at Belgrade it rejoins the old route through to Istanbul.

During the twenties the train was to begin the "old" route once more, alongside the Simplon. Sadly the old route became too expensive to maintain, but the Simplon Orient Express still survives today as the representative of the final word in luxury in Europe.

Today the Simplon Orient Express is not so much as getting from A to B, it is an experience, one to be savoured and rolled around the tongue. It is still the easiest way to travel from Paris to Vienna.

About the author

Janette Vince is managing director of http://www.thanksdarling.com an online store providing a multitude of gifts and experience days whatever the occasion. For more information on how to book an Orient Express experience day visit http://www.thanksdarling.com/englands-heritage-on-the-orient-express-for-two.html