In today’s sped-up world, time to yourself is a gift. Treat yourself this year end - make plans to step off the grid and luxuriate in the slow ways of this fabled train journey.
In today’s sped-up world, time to yourself is a gift. Treat yourself this year end - make plans to step off the grid and luxuriate in the slow ways of this fabled train journey.
WE
need to slow down. Humanity has toiled and innovated for centuries to get everything done more efficiently – presumably so that we will have more time to relax, despite the irony that no one seems to have any. The “slow movement” covers everything from mindful living to the preservation of cultural cuisine, but let’s look at its most direct interpretation: slow travel.
Rushing to work each day often can’t be helped, but why should your vacation be a frantic race to the destination, followed by another tiresome quest to cram as many hashtags as possible into your rapidly taken vacation photos? This is why we are going to tell you to ditch that first-class plane ticket and board a train. A train trundles along its rails, unchanged for decades, oblivious to the cult of speed that has developed around it. It is why rail journeys have always been thought of as romantic, and we are boarding the most romantic one of all: the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
The train’s key staff members line up proudly outside the train to welcome guests boarding this beautiful, anachronistic time machine. Nearly nothing about the train is modern. There is no Wi-Fi and the carpet patterns look like they were in vogue before Vogue existed. But everything is immaculate. The wood panels are polished to a mirror sheen, and the linen, uniforms and bedding are so perfectly pressed and fitted, the only wrinkles you’ll find are on the faces of smiling stewards.
“Our passengers aren’t the sort who will stop travelling because of what they read in the papers,” says train manager Bruno Janssens, referring to the political climate in Turkey. Most of the passengers are retirees but, indeed, you will not find the same vigour in folks lining up for a plane or bus.
Janssens continues his tour of the train. “Car 3309 is famous because it was stuck in snow for six days on the journey that inspired Agatha Christie. We still have letters from passengers expressing how happy they were despite the delay. Villagers brought food and firewood,” he says. “That’s one of the reasons I love working here. There is real etiquette, and it’s something money can’t buy.”
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1929
While Singaporeans might be content eating their way through a holiday, it’s worth checking out the bar car. It is at night when the train feels most alive, when the wines, accoutrements and conversation sparkle. A jazz pianist adds to the atmosphere, reading the keys off handwritten scribblings in his Moleskine. No one is holding a smartphone. For entertainment, they have one another’s company. In a corner, a group is playing cards.
“Thirsty American tourists in the 1920s is what pushed cocktail culture in Europe,” says head barman Walter Nisi. He prepares the train’s signature cocktail, the Guilty 12, a concoction of 12 ingredients inspired by the victims of Christie’s novel. He teases that anyone who can correctly guess each ingredient could win a trip to Istanbul. “It is also the number of countries the train travels to in a season.”
Unsurprisingly, the bar menu focuses on classic cocktails, though Nisi has created a number of originals. He proceeds to make a layered cocktail, hands remarkably steady despite the train’s occasional rocking. He has accumulated numerous stories in his nine years behind this moving bar, and has seen everything from a woman’s 80th birthday party to a Bulgari event where the bar car was essentially transformed into a disco. “I am behind the bar and I tend it but I am also in the lounge. I want to offer my personality,” he says. “On this train, we really want style. In 20 years, maybe the bartender would be changed, but the atmosphere will be the same.”
The piano may need tuning every two to three weeks due to vibrations from the train, a new champagne and spirits bar opened earlier this year in one of the dining cars, and plans to install air-conditioners in the sleeping cars are under way, but we agree that the train’s spirit will remain unchanged.
04 COCKTAIL HOUR
The train is at its most vibrant at night, when passengers gather for drinks and conversations sparkle. .
05 DRINK TO MURDER
Among the cocktails the bar whips up, one is called the Guilty 12, inspired by the 12 suspects in Agatha Christie’s murder whodunnit.
06 TAKING IT SLOW
Passengers have the option of having breakfast in bed before getting up for a champagne brunch later in the morning.
07 INTERVAL ENTERTAINMENT
A brass band plays at Calais while passengers transfer to the train that will takethem to London.
08 IF YOU HAVE TO SHOP
The souvenir shop on board has everything from 8 euro (S$12) novelty pens to 7,000 euro diamond bracelets. The Orient-Express teddy bear is the most popular item.
The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express’ Classic Route takes passengers from Venice to Paris then London (and vice versa) with a night’s stay in a luxury sleeper car. Extended journeys will bring you all the way to Istanbul from Venice in five nights, which is the same route Agatha Christie took when she was inspired to write Murder on the Orient Express.
THE COMPLETE PACKAGE
Want to add some variety to your rail journey? Here are two more Belmond properties to begin and end your adventure with.
BELMOND LE MANOIR AUX QUAT’SAISONS, GREAT MILTON, UK
Good food is a given when a hotel is run by a renowned French chef. Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has maintained its two Michelin star rating since it received them in 1984, the first year of opening, and has trained at least 28 Michelin-star chefs since. So the food is, without a doubt, phenomenal, thanks in part to the manor’s kitchen gardens and fruit orchard, but the hotel is just as much a reason to make the trek to Great Milton.
For an establishment of this level (and in England, no less) the staff aren’t intimidatingly prim – perhaps an extension of Blanc’s own loveable manner – and the rooms, each one unique and inspired by Blanc’s travels, are awash with warmth and personality. Being a restored manor house in the countryside, it’s not big on flashy facilities. However, simply spend time with the gardeners and hunting bird handlers (Le Manoir’s answer to pest control), all of them brimming with love for their jobs, and you’ll find that is all the entertainment you need.