All aboard for all connections
Country Life UK|April 05, 2023
Take your time and travel in old-fashioned luxury aboard the revived Orient Express, advises Rosie Paterson
Rosie Paterson
All aboard for all connections

ON June 5, 1883, the first Express d’Orient chugged out of Paris in a ceremonial billow of steam, destined for Vienna, via Munich, and forever altering trans-European train travel. By October of the same year, the route was extended to Giurgiu in Romania, with guests whisked across the Danube to Ruse, Bulgaria, and onto another train bound for Varna on Bulgaria’s east coast. The final journey to Istanbul, then still commonly referred to in the West as Constantinople, was completed by ferry. By June 1889, it was possible to traverse Continental Europe, from Paris in the north-west to Constantinople in the south-east, in one fell swoop. Sirkeci railway station served as the locomotive’s terminus in the latter—a pink-tinged Orientalist confection designed by Prussian architect August Jasmund in the late 19th century. It’s still in operation today.

Somewhat confusingly, the Orient Express (as it was renamed in 1891) was not a company, but a service used to describe all manner of routes, including those mentioned above, as well as ones that steamed through Zurich, Innsbruck, Milan, Venice and Athens. It was actually operated by a Belgian firm, the Compagnie Internationale des WagonsLits, whose fictional director Monsieur Bouc is a star character in Agatha Christie’s seminal novel, Murder on the Orient Express.

As well as Christie, the Orient Express has inspired countless other authors, filmmakers and musicians—Bram Stoker, Ian Fleming, Paul Theroux, Michael Palin, Philip Starke—who, combined, have ensured that it has remained synonymous with luxury train travel for 140 years and counting.

Denne historien er fra April 05, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra April 05, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA COUNTRY LIFE UKSe alt
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024