Italy is a land of paradoxes. When I first visited in the early eighties, it was still a country where crushing poverty inherited from the crippling financial burden of the second world war was often the norm. Petrol was rationed and tourists were obliged to buy coupons before visiting to ensure they could get supplies. In spite of the poverty, though, one thing always stood out - the care and attention paid to food. La cucina was invariably treated with special reverence and whilst meat was way beyond the means of many, the staples, rice, pasta, polenta, together with the abundance of fresh vegetables that only a Mediterranean climate can deliver, was prepared with such inventive devotion that a long drawn-out lunch under a vine-laden pergola could be a positively heavenly experience.
Now, of course, that the country has dragged itself into the 21st century, much has changed – and herein lies one paradox: the availability of fast food has grown exponentially and yet service can be abysmally slothful, the fare on offer frequently indifferent and sometimes downright nasty. You can still find a small family-run trattoria serving properly-cooked local specialities, but you’re more likely to find yourself being overcharged for mediocre food and then have you change stolen by a waiter sneering over his starched collar. Other paradoxes can be comical rather than demeaning: toilets now have a proper pan rather than being the old squat-and-thrust hole in the floor and yet no need is seen to provide a seat of any description; a new-fangled touch screen electronic till stands idle because the staff don’t know how to use it, bills being hand-scrawled on scraps of paper; a humble road-crossing policeman dressed like an admiral struts around in enough gold braid to rope off a nightclub’s VIP section.
In spite of all this, though, and in spite of the uniformity of everything the EU has brought, Italy still manages to delight and surprise. The language has to be the most beautiful-sounding in the world, its lilt and cadence just bursting with sunshine and romance. I confess I have never learnt it, but my upbringing included a lot of classical music and I have found it entirely possible to make myself understood using a modest lexicon of musical terms: “con tutti veloce” I told a taxi driver when we were late for a train and then screamed “rallentando” when he took this as licence to use the opposite carriageway. “Molto, molto, molto” I told the waiter enthusiastically grating parmesan on my pappardelle and then “ma non troppo” when the fine threads of cheese started to spill over the edge of the plate. The beauty of the language was thrown into sharp relief when we were treated to a two-hour train journey listening to an American tourist boring his companions rigid with his endless monologue. Like a nightmare from which you can’t escape, his dull monotonous drawl rasped like a saw through my brain. I spent the whole journey either with fingers jammed into my ears or sitting on my clenched fists, forcing myself not to leap over the seat in front to seize his leathery geriatric neck and put everyone out of their misery. I did what every Englishman would, of course, and suffered in silence until we reached Venice, this being the starting point for our real journey and the reason why we had come: to board the Orient Express.
Venice must be the most romantic location on earth to board this most romantic of trains. The Santa Lucia station is quite unlike any other: You could spend hours on the steps just soaking up the atmosphere, looking down at the Grand Canal with its flotilla of gondolas, water taxis and vaporetti all vying for position, as busy as any station approach in the world and yet infinitely more charming.
The Orient Express, of course, is another paradox, though of a different type. You could call your compartment the most expensive hotel room in the world in terms of its square area. There is no air-conditioning, no shower and you have to share a toilet with all the other passengers in the carriage. This, of course, would be to miss the point. It is undeniably expensive (but bear in mind that our trip from Venice to Budapest cost no more than a couple of business-class flights between the two cities) but this is a very cynical view to take and a cynic, as Oscar Wilde once wrote “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. The Orient Express is a glorious anachronism, a gleaming relic from an age when travel was an end in itself. The carriages have been beautifully and lovingly restored, wood panelling polished to a mirror finish and resplendent with all the original brass and chrome fittings, right down to the little hook padded so you might hang up your fob-watch without fear of damaging it. Little expense, it would appear, has been spared in faithfully recreating what was long the favoured mode of transport of the rich when on their grand tour. A uniformed steward – there is one for each carriage – pours a glass of champagne into a crystal flute before departure and the train manager knocks at the cabin door to introduce himself to every passenger shortly afterwards. Of course, there are reminders that one is not landed gentry travelling in the 1920’s – but they are mostly external. There is no whistle to announce departure and the engine doesn’t huff and puff away in a cloud of steam, a nondescript modern locomotive doing the pulling nowadays, but at least this means you can lean out of the window and not get a face full of smuts. The view, as well, can be less than inspiring – soon after leaving Venice you enter the unashamedly industrial city of Mestre and thence the dull utilitarian landscape of the Northern Veneto. As the train evidently doesn’t feature in the schedules of the modern rail network, we were constantly pulling into sidings and waiting, sometimes for hours, for more modern expresses to roar past. For the Orient Express wafts along at a far more sedate pace, rarely exceeding 50mph. The lack of air-conditioning can be troublesome, especially in the 30 degree plus sunshine of our particular journey. Fortunately, you can open the gleaming brass-framed windows wide on this old train – although a word of warning – I stuck my head out to get some fresh air and almost had it ripped off by the bow wave of a passing Eurostar.
The staff – and there are many – are without exception extremely accomplished in their work. Our steward, Rupert, was unfailingly cheerful, informative and polite during the journey, being on call for nearly 24 hours, dispensing drinks, advice and general banter to everyone in his charge. He had that rare skill of juggling the needs of eight very different couples without appearing rushed and yet being able to make each of us think we were somehow enjoying his special attention. The only fly in the ointment, and I suppose there had to be one, was the maitre d’hotel, a tight-lipped, unsmiling figure who, whilst frighteningly efficient in dealing with dinner arrangements, made you feel less than comfortable in his presence. The clipped German accent didn’t help, nor the savage crew-cut and the rimless spectacles. I couldn’t help thinking that if there were to be any murder on this Orient Express he would be prime suspect.
The etiquette of the compartment takes a little getting used to. Although there were only two of us in it, changing for dinner required one to stand in the corridor whilst the other took an “Italian” shower and completed their toilet. This, together with the transformation to sleeping compartment (the steward carried this out while we dined) and bunk beds with attendant ladder reminded me of nothing so much as childhood holidays in the family campervan.
Although there are only twelve passenger carriages, each carrying a maximum of 16 people, the Orient Express boasts no fewer than three restaurant cars and a bar car complete with grand piano – the logistics of getting this last item on board defy belief. Like the passenger cars, the restaurant cars have been salvaged from different trains of the past and this is reflected in their designs. We were due to dine in The Cote d’Azur, beautifully designed by Rene Lalique in his timelessly elegant art deco style with his signature glass panels on a silver background set into Cuban mahogany – originally built for the Cote d’Azur Pullman express in 1928.
Pre-dinner drinks are taken in the crowded bar car to the chords of period classics from the resident pianist. It is at this point that the glamour of the journey becomes apparent, for no-one spares any effort to dress up for the occasion. Any qualms I might have had in being overdressed for the occasion in white dinner jacket and silk bow tie were quickly laid to rest. This, and the dinner which followed, were surely the high point of the trip. Everyone here is celebrating a special occasion – birthday, honeymoon, anniversary – and all enter into the spirit, making for a very special experience indeed.
Dinner (there are two sittings) was a masterpiece and the high point of the journey. I had feared prior to the trip that the food would be its undoing, but we enjoyed a meal worthy of any Michelin-starred establishment. Starched linen, heavy silverware and crystal glass set the table. Chef Christian Bodiguel and his team, working from a tiny cramped galley, produced a meal of quite stunning simplicity and beautiful in its execution.
Although a limited a la carte is available (with Beluga caviar topping the bill at €390) one eats table d’hote on the Orient Express. We started with a simple roulade of bass with pine kernels and sun-blushed tomatoes. Crisp-skinned on the outside, moist and flaky on the inside, with the concentrated punch of the tomato in the middle, it demonstrated the skill of someone who can work magic with just a few top-quality ingredients. It took me a fair amount of the excellent home-made bread to clean my plate.
From the vantage of where I was sitting and courtesy of the mirror-polished panelling I could see the chefs’ production line, plating up in perfect time to the counterpoint of white-gloved waiters who were taking the finished plates and presenting them to the diners, the whole routine expertly choreographed by the sinister maitre d’hotel.
Then came a roast duck breast, pink as ordered and, more importantly, properly rested to ensure its tenderness. On the side, pan-fried foie gras with a crumble topping slipped down a treat and a pleasingly bitter chocolate-infused sauce cut through the richness of the dish. We washed this down with the most expensive bottle of Pinot Grigio I’ve ever ordered (at €40, the cheapest wine on the list! – it’s worth noting that, whilst all meals and mineral water are included in the price of the ticket, other drinks are not – it’s perfectly possible to run up a tab of more than €100 with even a few modest drinks) served from a silver ice bucket by our sommelier. Cheeses were cut at the table from an exclusively French selection and served with a variety of breads, biscuits and chilled grapes. Dessert was a melt-in-the-mouth lemon tart with raspberry meringue and Limoncello.
Then we were treated to another demonstration of the skill of the staff when a waiter (and this appeared to be his only job) appeared at the table and proceeded to give the linen cloth a “crumbing down”, armed only with a dessert spoon. He managed to waft it across the table top in such a way that all the crumbs were miraculously swept up in seconds. How he did it, I have no idea. We – and several others, I noted – surreptitiously tried to emulate the procedure with no success. All we managed to do was shovel crumbs into our laps or onto the floor.
Dinner was finished off with coffee, poured with aplomb against the swaying of the train without a drop spilt but left way too long in the pot and the only low point in the meal, some delicate petits fours rounded everything off nicely and we retired well after midnight to the bar for a nightcap. Incidentally, the bar stays open until the last guest has gone, so you can stay up and party all night, if your wallet can stand it. When we made our way back down the train to our compartment, we found it transformed into a snug and cosy bedroom, with a monogrammed tin of sugar pastilles on the pillow to see us off to sleep. The train was stationary at this point and the oppressive heat made it difficult to sleep, but once we moved off again, the gentle swaying of the carriage had a soporific effect and gently lulled us off.
The morning found us through the Alps and into the more inviting scenery of the Austrian lowlands. A discreet tap at the door at a prearranged 8.30am announced our steward, ready to convert our compartment back to its daytime configuration whilst we stood in our VSOE (Venice Simplon Orient Express – to give the company its full title) monogrammed robes in the corridor. This took him a practised few seconds, whereupon he brought us our breakfast on a silver tray. This time the coffee was fresh, the orange juice even fresher, and the croissants soft, flaky and buttery – had they baked them on board or picked them up en route? Given the selection of breads at dinner, I suspect someone was working through the night to make these..
A few idle hours later and it was time for lunch, this time in the Etoile du Nord restaurant car with its beautiful walnut veneer and floral marquetry. I noted that the design on the menu covers, which of course we stole as mementos, reflects the style of the particular carriage – a thoughtful touch, meaning that we’ll have to go on another trip to complete the set…
Lunch was presided over by the sinister maitre d’hotel again. I half expected him to say “I’ve been expecting you, Meester Smeeth” as he greeted us with a thin-lipped smile – not as fanciful a notion as it might seem; Bond fans will remember a fight to the death with the dastardly Red Grant of SMERSH in a compartment of the Orient Express in From Russia with Love. No matter, lunch mimicked dinner in its quality and execution. White and green asparagus spears, soft-poached egg, truffle sabayon and oscietra caviar – all beautifully presented even if I find caviar a little slippery and salty for my taste – perhaps if I eat enough of it I’ll grow to like it. On to a pan-fried fillet of John Dory with wasabi cream – a good choice of fish as foil for the pungency of the sauce – Dory might be light and delicate but it packs plenty of flavour. For afters a cinnamon rice pudding in a chocolate basket, which even I couldn’t finish – three meals and no exercise in the past fourteen hours had defeated me. All we could manage was to stagger back to the cabin and stretch out for the remaining few hours of the journey.
All stops are pulled out for the arrival in Budapest – red carpet laid, gawping hoi-polloi roped off and emperor Franz Josef’s personal waiting room opened especially for the occasion. All the staff lined up to say goodbye – adding to the other-worldly experience and perhaps slightly embarrassing, but who secretly doesn’t yearn to be a member of the aristocracy?
Was it worth the expense? Undoubtedly. Would I do it again? Certainly, but in maybe another twenty years – the Orient Express is, and should be, a very special and rare extravagance.