Orient Express through Sweden

Old fashioned luxury comes to Sweden in the spring of 2013. 

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  A poster for the traditional Paris to Istanbul route created by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL)

• Do you have a taste for old fashioned luxury? Then this will be good news for you: Next spring, the old Orient Express will run from Venice, Italy via Copenhagen, Denmark all the way up to Stockholm. Mark your calendar for April 10, when the train will first make the route.

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  The Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train service originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, and it ran from 1883 to 2009. Its route changed many times and several routes also ran concurrently. Next spring you can get a taste of the Orient Express, as it will pass from Venice to Stockholm. Above: The Pullman Orient Express.

• It’s a single trip and it will cost you 90,000 SEK ($12,521). The classic Orient Express first left Paris in 1883, heading for the Bulgarian city of Varna, where the passengers took a ferry to Istanbul in Turkey, after which the route changed several times. Many routes were actually going at the same time. In those days, the rumors of a de luxe trip were true: great sleeping compartments, and a great restaurant. Kings and famous people were quickly hooked and became passengers. And then of course there was British crime writer Agatha Christie’s (1890-1976) bestseller “Murder on the Orient Express” (1934), which became a motion picture in 1974.

• If you feel you can’t shell out the amount of money needed for the trip next spring, you have another possibility to get a taste of it—three Orient Express cars from the Italian part of the original route are parked in Furuviksparken in Gävle, where they act as a hostel. More info on the hostel in Furuviksparken: Furuvik and, book your tickets here: Orient-Express