I wake up to some strange clanking noises. Oh yes, I tell myself, I’m on a train: hard to remember actually, as I have a generously proportioned double bed to myself, at the foot of which is a table and two chairs, a small sofa and, beyond a mirrored wall, a marble accented bathroom and shower. It’s not like any train I’ve been on before. And oh yes, I tell myself again, I am on a train, but the train – as the strange clanking noises have just reminded me – is currently being separated into pieces and loaded onto a ferry. Given that I’ve yet to enjoy my breakfast cappuccino at the aforementioned table – or, let’s face it, back in the generously proportioned double bed – it’s a lot to get my head around.
The train I’m sleeping, eating and generally mooching about on is La Dolce Vita Orient Express, which is travelling considerably more energetically than I am between Palermo in Sicily and Rome: a two-night journey which, if you know your basic Italian geography, involves traversing the Straits of Messina, where the Tyrrhenian Sea meets the Ionian. Thanks to some tempestuous tectonic plates, it is not currently possible to build a bridge from Sicily to mainland Italy: hence the ferry. And what a blessing, in many ways, that that is the case. If you’re a train person – and, in this climatically compromised age, how can you not be – a journey like this is an extraordinary privilege to experience, not to mention a technical feat at which to gawp.
Oliver Astrologo
Before that though: a clarification on the Orient Express name. Originally a Belgian company set up in 1883 to run routes across Europe between Paris and Istanbul, there are currently two companies that operate under variants of the title. The British company Belmond runs the Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express service in evocatively restored 1920s and 1930s carriages. The more recent La Dolce Vita Orient Express, launched in 2025, is overseen by the French multinational hospitality company Accor, and is currently offering routes from Rome to Venice, Florence, Palermo and a newly announced itinerary to Istanbul.
Unlike the Belmond trains, the La Dolce Vita Orient Express carriages are actually reconditioned Italian commuter trains from the 1990s, although the only hints at their former use are the large rectangular windows (sometimes, on your journey, you might pass an actual Trenitalia commuter train, and it’s like glimpsing a long-lost cousin to whom the luck didn’t quite fall). Inside, they are unrecognisable: the deluxe cabins and suites, all glossy dark wood and crisp white bedlinen, are, by regular sleeper train standards, huge. In the bar car, there is somehow the space – and stability – for a baby grand piano.
Most meals are taken in the stylish dining car, the menu overseen by Heinz Beck, the esteemed German chef who, with restaurants including the three-Michelin-starred La Pergola in Rome, is basically an honorary Italian. Beck has put together a series of regionally reflective menus, with optional wine pairings, that are both delicious and also not overwhelming in scale, which, when guests are on a swaying train for multiple days, is not just considerate but highly pragmatic. The dishes I ate, which included langoustine with roasted courgettes, zita gnochetti cacio e pepe and glazed lamb with tomato “variations”, were dainty, restrained and exactly right.
Mr Tripper
More spacious sleeping quarters means fewer guests – a maximum of 62 – and part of the charm of a journey like this is rubbing along with strangers with whom you might not ordinarily cross paths. My fellow passengers from Palermo to Rome included a cardiologist, a handbag designer, a dentist and an influencer, all of whom proved to be stimulating conversationalists (and the dentist, a great dancer). The intimate circumstances also make it basically impossible that someone, at some point, won’t make a joke about one of us being murdered (it would have been the influencer, with a selfie stick).
The aesthetic inspiration here is 1950s and 1960s Italian glamour: a consistent thread that runs from the sultry furniture and décor, designed by Italy’s Dimorestudio, and the entertainment in the bar car each night, where you stand a reasonably strong chance of being serenaded with “Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano” or “Quando, Quando, Quando”, and an equally strong chance that you will like it. (And, somewhat less expectedly, a chance that you’ll find yourself duetting on “Mac the Knife”, although I may well have been hallucinating.)
The journey is punctuated each afternoon by optional excursions, including a first stop in Sicily at the sceney seaside town of Taormina (once famed for its Greco-Roman amphitheatre, currently better known to some as the setting of White Lotus: Season 2). On arrival at Maratea station, the second of our outings, where we ascended the hill to take in the view from the town’s version of Christ the Redeemer, we were even escorted from the train to our waiting sprinters by a brass band playing a jaunty number that it took a few moments to clock as Alice Deejay’s 2000 Eurodance hit, “Do You Think You’re Better Off Alone”. But hey, a tune’s a tune.
Mr Tripper
An al fresco leg stretch was certainly welcome, as was the diverting patter provided by local tour guides, but on La Dolce Vita Orient Express, the train really is the star. I’d brought a book to read (in a fit of blind optimism, I’d actually packed four) but it felt perverse not to look out the window instead, and watch the rocky coast or the flat blue sea, the banks of prickly pears or the vineyards, the slopes of Etna or the distant outline of Vesuvius. On a train, unlike a plane, you never forget where you are, and with routes planned into France and Croatia, plus the introduction of the company’s first sailing yacht, Orient Express Corinthian, there are more mind-expanding itineraries to come.
By the time we rolled into Rome Ostienze station, and the city, the modern world, came bearing down, there was a tangible sense of sadness amongst the passengers. The good times were at an end. No more picturesque plates of pasta. No more staggering scenery. No more dancing dentists. La Dolce Vita Orient Express is the kind of experience that you may only have once in a lifetime, and only if you’re lucky (unless you want to retrain as a LDVOE “conductor”, to which, were I a more smiley and patient person, I would give serious thought). You’d be advised to savour every second.
Prices for a one-night itinerary start at €3,500 per person in a deluxe cabin and €4,700 per person in a suite. orient-express.com/la-dolce-vita