Tuscany, Italy
—
Italy has an costly new transport expertise, and it’s not a Ferrari. The Dolce Vita Orient Express — unveiled earlier this 12 months — is the nation’s first homegrown luxury train, pitched as an homage to the Fifties and ‘60s, when glamor meant Fellini, Valentino and sun shades after darkish.
There are 18 itineraries on provide, every threading its approach by way of the Italian countryside with an air of cinematic nostalgia. We hitched a experience with the “Taste of Tuscan Vineyards” tour this summer season: a 24-hour fever dream of wooden panelling, wine and being waited on.
It all begins at Rome’s Ostiense station, in an opulent lounge designed by French architect Hugo Toro. There are unique Twentieth-century mosaics underfoot, dwell jazz within the air, and servers handing out refreshments earlier than anybody even boards. Luggage is whisked away to cabins.
It’s already 1,000,000 miles away from the noise and chaos of the rush-hour commute exterior.
The Orient Express, a 150-year-old concept, returns to Italy
On platform No. 8, the train is ready. Its classic Z1 Italian carriages from the ‘70s and ‘80s have been gutted and reimagined with retro-cocktail-lounge-chic by Milan-based inside designers Dimorestudio.
There are 30 cabins: 18 suites and 12 deluxe rooms, every with their very own lavatory. My suite — a tidy 118 sq. toes — manages a double mattress, couch, desk and two armchairs and the sort of lavatory the place a Dyson hairdryer counts as normal difficulty.
The deluxe cabins are barely smaller, however ingenious, with sofabeds and stools that pull double obligation as couches and occasional tables.
Our conductor, Raffaela Mattioli, knocks to say hi there and reminds us she will be summoned by textual content message if we want something — concierge service on rails.
The lounge at Ostiense station.
Lunch is served a number of automobiles down, previous black and white pictures of Italy’s trendy previous. Inevitably, the meals comes with Michelin credentials: German kitchen genius Heinz Beck designs the menus, whereas his longtime collaborator Walter Canzio executes them completely in what quantities to a closet outfitted with saucepans.
“If a food can give you emotion, you make the perfect plate,” Canzio tells us. He isn’t fallacious. We attempt a tuna carpaccio model of pappa al pomodoro, adopted by amberjack with zucchini, almonds and saffron. It’s the Italian countryside whizzing previous the window, however served neatly on a plate.
Performing culinary magic in a tiny area is “challenging and thrilling at the same time,” Canzio provides.
This isn’t only a train, insists Paolo Barletta, the CEO of Italy’s Arsenale Group — one of many consortium of corporations behind the Dolce Vita, together with French multinational Accor — it’s a technique to “experience Italy at 360 degrees.”
Lunch over, there’s refreshments within the Lounge Bar, the place workers, who experience with the train for the complete 24-hour journey, taking breaks in their very own cabins, have much less expansive issues. Chiefly, says Train Manager Dora Domby, the choreography wanted to create that luxury lodge expertise in a sequence of packing containers on wheels.
It’s not all glamor. Because the Dolce Vita runs on common Italian tracks, there are occasional pauses for extra mundane occasions like engine swaps, site visitors snarlups and delays. At least, thanks to those, friends can inform themselves they’re experiencing “authentic” Italy.
The Tastes of Tuscan Vineyards journey begins at 3,500 euros per particular person, or round $4,110, for one evening and two days on board — that’s as shut because it will get to a funds possibility. Golf-themed itineraries begin at 12,360 euros ($14,520), for 4 days of fairways and tremendous eating.
Optional add-ons, such because the $500-tour of medieval Montalcino with a Brunello wine tasting, really feel virtually restrained as compared.
Dinner requires friends to slide into one thing elegant — extra elegant. Even the workers swap up already sensible uniforms for the night forward.
“It’s marvellous,” Christine Arrowsmith, an English visitor touring with husband Colin, says over toots and honks from the resident jazz band. “We like Italian design. There’s something about it, that certain little extra.”
The train has loads of locations to loiter — the lounge, the eating automobile and the restaurant automobile — nice for mixing with fellow friends or to fake to learn a e book whereas consuming one thing. There’s actually extra mingling right here than in a lodge. It’s like a summer season camp, besides with higher tailoring.
Sleeping within the bed room is comfy sufficient, though the stop-start rhythm of the train was a reminder that such glamor nonetheless must be hauled by a brute-force locomotive. I awakened a few instances. Not that it mattered in such nice environment. The temperature, nonetheless, felt just a little too cryogenic, maybe as revenge for the sweltering summer season Italy was enduring.
Experienced train vacationers Christine and Colin Arrowsmith say Orient Express has gone a step above the remainder.
The train is the primary of six that Arsenale plans to roll out by 2027. More routes — to Istanbul, Split and Paris — are additionally on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the corporate has initiatives in Saudi Arabia — a service referred to as Dream of the Desert — in addition to Egypt, Uzbekistan and the UAE.
And as a result of that’s clearly not sufficient, Arsenale has partnered with Orient Express on the opening of two luxury resorts. La Minerva launched in Rome earlier this 12 months and Palazzo Donà Giovannelli will open in Venice in April 2026.
On board La Dolce Vita Orient Express
“Our idea is to expand the fleet and to create a fleet that will be respectful of the heritage and the country where the train will go,” says Barletta. “We hope that, like in the cruising industry, we will have in the next 50 years many trains around the world that people can use to really create this combination between hotels, trains, ships, and so on.”
For now, although, the Dolce Vita, is an opulent rolling stage set, carrying its passengers from one traditional Italian postcard to the following.
In the morning, breakfast is served and immediately it’s over. Before heading our separate methods, we’re shepherded as soon as extra into the lounge, the place all of it started, for one final civilized refreshment to cushion the touchdown as we head again to actuality.