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The Orient Express

by Mary McHugh

Remember the movie Murder on the Orient Express? Remember all that polished wood, Lalique glass, brass fittings, elegant people carrying on civilized conversations while drinking champagne and wearing silk?  Well, I just came back from a trip on this 'train of kings', or so it was once dubbed, from Verona to London where I expected Hercules Poirot to turn up any second. 
    It was the most luxurious two days and one night of my life. “This is a train for special occasions,” the immaculately uniformed steward said. And when I talked to people in the 1920’s bar car with the pianist who plays until everyone has gone to his cozy bed in picture window compartments, I found one man who had surprised his astonished wife on her 40th birthday by telling her they were going to Verona and then whisking her onto the train for the romantic ride of their lives.  She beamed the whole time, holding his hand and drinking champagne. 
      People celebrate their 25th, their 30th, their 50th anniversaries on this train.  They assuage the pain of a 50th, a 60th or a 70th birthday on the Orient Express or celebrate the last child finishing college and actually finding a job. I was there as a working journalist writing about this train as the most romantic honeymoon trip anyone could imagine, so I didn’t have to pay the $1970 that it costs for this rather brief sojourn.  Believe me when I tell you that it’s worth every penny of that amount to sit in your exquisitely paneled compartment looking out a huge window while the snow-covered Dolomites go by in Italy, then the Alps of Liechtenstein, Switzerland and France as a background for the chalets and villas that nestle at the foot of the mountains.  You feel like you’re in a movie the whole time sitting on a comfortable, upholstered couch, drinking tea brought by your own steward, who shows you the button to push if you want him to bring you most anything in the whole world. 
     We boarded the gleaming navy blue and gold train in Verona where it was easier to board than in Venice. This departure point was closer, also, to the Palazzo Arzaga in Brescia, where we spent two glorious days in a 15th century restored monastery with parts of the original frescoes still on the walls.  On board, we got used to the feeling of being completely spoiled when it was time to go to one of the three dining cars for our lunch. 
     Each dining car has its own specific personality: one has panels of Lalique glass between the windows; another has black lacquer chinoiserie and the car we lunched in had delicate marquetry inlaid on mahogany.  The tablecloths were fine Italian linen, the crystal was French, the china by Ginori, and the food - oh! the food.  We were invited to visit the three kitchens on board, and it took enormous patience on the part of the French chef, Christian Bodiguel, to allow five journalists into a space about the size of a kitchen in a New York apartment, where he supervises two sous-chefs and four cooks who amaze us with the most subtly flavored, marvelously delicious meals on our trip.
      We had three courses at lunch, including a superb Scotch salmon mayonnaise with Mediterranean prawns, and a divine meringue with chocolate in the middle for dessert.  I am a chocoholic, so I was transported right out of that train into heaven.
     We sat in divinely comfortable armchairs, mmming and ahhing over the food and the Dolomites visible out our window as we ate, drinking a great white Bordeaux and pretending we lived that way every day.  That’s the best part of this trip: you imagine yourself back in the 20’s and 30’s when the other passengers in the dining room might be King Boris of Bulgaria or Elsa Maxwell, Mata Hari and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. This was the train of kings, after all, and King Leopold II of Belgium loved trains so much that he used his influence in the 1870’s to help a man named Georges Nagelmackers build up a fleet of luxury railway carriages in exchange for free trips on the Orient Express. 
     The line I like best in the brochure is “You cannot be overdressed.”  I know I’m a vanishing breed, but I love getting dressed up. And I have this theory that people behave better toward each other when they are dressed in appropriate clothes.  That’s certainly the way it was on this trip. The men had to wear jackets and ties, the women were asked to wear “smart daywear”.  My next favorite line is: “Please do not wear jeans”.  It’s not that I don’t wear jeans all the time at home - I’m a grungy writer, after all - but jeans don’t belong on the Orient Express, or at the theater, or in a nice restaurant.  I felt chic, elegant and part of a world I do not ordinarily live in. 
     After lunch, we strolled through the Piano Bar where a man plays until the very last passenger toddles off to bed. Back to our compartments for a cozy read, with occasional walks into the corridor to look out the huge windows at the other side of the train where the snow-covered Alps seemed close enough to touch.  At one point that first afternoon, we stopped at Gries-am-Brenner near the Brenner Pass in Austria in the Tyrolean Alps where I went skiing when I was 22 years old. I was studying (sort of) in Paris at the Sorbonne, and we took the Orient Express to Austria on our Christmas vacation.  In those days, though, we sat in regular railway cars with other students and brought our own sandwiches to munch along the way. It wasn’t elegant, but it was awesome riding past these same mountains where I saw my first Christmas tree with candles, rode in a horse and sleigh through the Brenner Pass into Italy on Christmas Eve. There I attended a church service kneeling on cold stones and warmed up later at a tavern with wine and the sound of a zither playing The Third Man Theme. 
     The fun of being young and carefree, flirting with men from all over the world, kissing them on New Year’s Eve, skiing without lifts, just herringboning our way to the top of the slopes, looking pretty  - all of that came back to me on this memorable train helping me forget, for the moment, that I’m 71. 
     Just as I was settling into a half-nap, half day-dream, the blue-uniformed steward named Stephano popped by to ask if I would like tea.  I wasn’t at all hungry after that lunch but I wasn’t going to miss anything on this trip, so I said that would be lovely, and could I have hot chocolate instead of tea.  He said of course and brought me a few delectable little pastries, a rich and chocolatey hot chocolate, and asked if there was anything else. I just purred and said no, thank you. 
      There was just time after tea to get ready for dinner.  The one slight, infinitesimal flaw in the Orient Express is that there is no room for a shower in the compartments, but I somehow managed to take a full bath in a generous-sized washbasin tucked away behind mahogany doors in one corner of my room. There was a nice thick towel, lovely soap in one of those little blue containers you can take home to scent your lingerie drawer, mirrors on the inside of the doors of the bath closet and a large mirror for make-up.  I wouldn’t have believed that I could do it but in half an hour I was clean and wearing my favorite special-occasion dress, which looks like springtime. It’s a two-piece, ivory silk dress with flowers printed on it that look hand-painted, but aren’t.  I always feel beautiful in it. 
     At the 9:30 sitting,  we were ushered into the Lalique dining car where we talked about life, love and how much we were enjoying this train. The four courses included perfectly cooked duck, a cheese platter, pastries and something called mignardaises, which I loosely translated as 'little cuties'.  They were flavored gumdrops, which were nice, but I was looking for chocolate cuties.
     After a leisurely coffee, we strolled into the piano bar and joined a group of British journalists and some Microsoft geeks who appeared to be engaged in some sort of activity involving the sounds of the Orient Express.  I’d had enough wine at dinner to try out my French on one of the executives of the Orient Express who joined us and was patient with my efforts to speak his language. About 1:00 in the morning,  I went off to my compartment where my couch had been made into an incredibly comfortable bed with sheets monogrammed with the emblem of the Orient Express. Bliss.
     The next morning I woke up in Paris.  We were in the Gare de l’Est and I could see the chef loading fresh bread and croissants onto the train for our brunch later in the morning.  First, the steward brought me hot chocolate, brioche and orange juice for my first breakfast - God forbid I should go hungry until time for the brunch at 11.  After a quick mini-bath, I was dressed and ready for my last morning on this leg of the trip. The train started up again and we watched the little French towns go by as if they were part of a film directed by Louis Malle. At 11, we went to black and pearl chinoiserie car and ate a sumptuous brunch while Chantilly, Clermont, the champagne country of the Somme River regions, Amiens and Le Touquet (the hangout of aristocrats) went past our windows. In Boulogne-sur- Mer, our luggage was loaded onto a catamaran for a smooth, hour-long trip to Folkestone, England, where we boarded a British Pullman train, the cream and gold extension of the Orient Express in Britain.
     Settled in luxurious armchairs, we drank champagne and ate a magnificent tea of finger sandwiches, scones, pastries and fresh strawberries, as if we hadn’t eaten ourselves silly at brunch in France. Well, you do what you have to do. 
     All too soon we were in London’s Victoria Station, claiming our bags which were waiting for us and went off to two days in London, a whole adventure in itself, best left for another article. 
     If you are besotted with the charm and elegance of the Orient Express by this time, you can get more information by calling: 800-524-2420 or check the web at ww.orientexpresstrains.com.
     I can still close my eyes and imagine that I’m riding along, pampered, cosseted, soothed, every sense delighted, on the special-occasion train of kings. And as we should tell ourselves every day - we’re worth it.

 

Mary McHugh is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is "Special Siblings:  Growing Up With Someone With a Disability," a memoir about growing up with her brother Jack who has cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Mary worked for The New York Times for eight years as a writer, researcher and copy editor. She was an articles editor at several national magazines and a contributing editor to Cosmopolitan. Her story, "Telling Jack," which was published in the "Hers" column of  The New York Times Magazine, was nominated for an award for best personal essay by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Her Good Housekeeping article, "Loving Jack," was nominated for an award by the American Society of Magazine Editors. She is now working on a book on long-term marriages and another book about her daughter Kyle. You can  E-mail Mary with questions, additions to her survey or questions.