Standing under the iron ribcage of London’s St Pancras station, it’s impossible not to feel a thrill as Eurostar trains whisk passengers away from the city and under the sea. In just two-and-a-half hours, travellers can step out into the French capital, where one of the greatest railway journeys truly begins.
Launched in 1883 by the fabulously named Georges Nagelmackers, the Express d’Orient was, at first, a regular passenger service rather than a luxury train. Initially, it took a combination of trains and ferries to complete the journey from Paris to Istanbul: trains departed Paris for Vienna, then travelled through Budapest and Bucharest to the southern Romanian city of Giurgiu. Passengers transferred to a ferry across the Danube to Bulgaria before boarding another train to the Black Sea coast, where a steamer tied up the journey to Istanbul. However, in 1889 the line was completed, and that June the first direct train departed Paris, taking passengers to Istanbul’s Sirkeci Station over three nights.
With night trains enjoying a resurgence and climate change at the forefront of our minds, now is the time to embrace the joys of slow travel by rail. Even though the service was discontinued in 2009, it’s perfectly possible to follow the same route, with Munich wound in. A direct flight from London to Istanbul costs from £100 and takes
