The new “Orient Express” will travel through Italian vineyards from Monferrato to Montalcino to Etna

Climb aboard a legendary train and its elegant interiors inspired by famous 20th century masters of Italian design - from Gio Ponti to Gae Aulenti - designed by Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran’s Dimorestudio. You will be taking a luxurious journey to the Italian wine territories in cabin-suites and the famous restaurant carriage offering the “Grand Tour d'Italia” breakfast and afternoon tea, and serves sumptuous lunches and grand soirée dinners of starred Italian cuisine and wines.
Leaving from Rome, you will travel to Monferrato, getting off in Nizza Monferrato to taste great wines and the precious truffle as well as visiting centuries-old cellars in the Unesco Heritage area. The next day you will wake up back in the Italian capital to enjoy the beauty of the Eternal City. Another round trip journey from Rome will take you to Montalcino and a tasting tour in one of the oldest Brunello wineries. On the round trip journey from Palermo, instead, you will travel through Sicily to the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, where you will stop for dinner, then go to Taormina the next day and a private visit to the Ancient Theatre, before climbing up to the vineyards on top of Mount Etna to admire the majesty of the volcano, while sipping fine wines.
Italian wine is the star of the itineraries traveling through the wonders of Italy on the new “Orient Express - La Dolce Vita” that will be starting at the end of 2024. It of course recalls that Georges Nagelmackers invented the first luxury train in Europe in 1883, which up until 1977 connected London to Istanbul, inspiring some of the greatest writers of all time, like Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”, starring Detective Hercule Poirot, sophisticated gourmet and wine lover.
This time, however, the Orient Express, which the French Group, ACCOR has owned since 2017, will travel on Italian tracks, paying homage to Italy’s beauty, artistic fervor and joy of living, and merit goes to its wine and food as well (prices start from 2.000 euros per night, including meals, drinks and excursions). It has been sort of integrated with the “Treno della Dolce Vita” project that the Ferrovie dello Stato Group presented in 2021 aiming to start in 2023 (but postponed to the end of 2024), and reach 74.000 passengers by 2026.
At the moment, there are eight itineraries offered. They are: “Rome, Venice & Portofino: a journey into beauty” (an aperitif in one of the characteristic cafés overlooking the gulf of Portofino); “Rome, Venice & Siena: a journey into splendor” (discovering the “ food and wine gems in the city of the Palio); “Rome, Palena & Matera: the city of stones”; “Rome & Nizza Monferrato: wine and truffles”; “Rome & Montalcino: the wine route”; “Rome, Maratea & Palermo: the wonders of the Tyrrhenian Sea” (pizza tasting at the Hotel Santavere in Maratea prepared by the famous chef-pizza chef Pier Daniele Seu); “Palermo, Maratea & Rome: the wonders of the Tyrrhenian Sea”, and “Palermo, Agrigento & Taormina: Sicily through its myths and legends”.