Grand Tours 2026 & 2027
Venice/Rome/Florence/Paris and variations
The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express Grand Tours are the definitive way to experience Europe's greatest cities without sacrificing an ounce of elegance. These curated multi-day journeys combine unhurried hotel stays in Rome, Florence, and Venice with the legendary overnight passage aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express itself — a train of polished marquetry, gleaming brass, and 1920s Art Deco splendour — arriving in Paris like a character stepping out of an Agatha Christie novel.
The arc of the journey moves through the very heart of Western civilisation: ancient Rome with its millennia of layered history, Renaissance Florence rising above the Arno, and the impossible floating city of Venice shimmering across its lagoon. Then, as dusk falls on your final Italian evening, you board one of the world's most celebrated trains and glide north through the Alps and into France, waking to Parisian rooftops and the promise of café au lait. It is a journey designed not merely to move you from place to place, but to transform the act of travel into the destination itself.
Grand Tour packages for 2026 and 2027 are available in a variety of configurations — typically eight or nine days — allowing guests to tailor their nights in each Italian city before the overnight train leg from Venice to Paris. Whether you choose a Historic Cabin for an authentic 1920s sleeper experience or upgrade to a private Suite or Grand Suite with en-suite bathroom, every detail of the train journey is included: all meals, cabin steward service, afternoon tea, and the incomparable ritual of dressing for dinner in the restaurant car as Europe slides past the windows.
- ✦Overnight journey aboard the legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express from Venice to Paris
- ✦Guided sightseeing in Rome: Colosseum, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, and St Peter's Square
- ✦Renaissance Florence: Duomo, Uffizi Gallery, Ponte Vecchio, and Piazza della Signoria
- ✦Venice walking tour covering San Marco, Doge's Palace, Rialto Bridge, and optional Murano island trip
- ✦Four-course dinner with wine and live piano music in the Art Deco restaurant car
- ✦Choice of Historic Cabin, Suite, or Grand Suite accommodation on the train
- ✦Seamless first-class high-speed rail connections between Rome, Florence, and Venice
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Arrival in Rome
Fly from your home city to Rome Fiumicino (Leonardo da Vinci) Airport, where a private transfer delivers you directly to your four-star hotel in the historic centre — options typically include the Hotel Marcella Royal, the Rose Garden Palace, or the Inn at the Spanish Steps. The remainder of the afternoon is yours: perhaps a first stroll across the cobbles of Piazza Navona or an early evening aperitivo in Trastevere. After the journey, Rome's eternal grandeur announces itself quietly and immediately.
Day 2 — Exploring the Eternal City
A chauffeur-driven sightseeing tour takes you through Rome's greatest monuments: the vast arena of the Colosseum and the sun-bleached columns of the Roman Forum, St Peter's Square and the soaring dome of the Basilica, the theatrical excess of the Trevi Fountain, and the elegant oval of Piazza Navona. Optional excursions may include a cooking class with an Italian chef, a wine-tasting at a local enoteca, or an illuminated evening tour of the city's fountains and piazzas. Evenings are free to discover Rome's neighbourhood trattorias and gelaterias at your own pace.
Day 3 — Rome to Florence
After a leisurely hotel breakfast, board a First Class high-speed Frecciarossa train at Roma Termini. The journey north takes under two hours, sweeping through the golden Tuscan countryside — rolling hills stitched with vineyards and cypress trees — before arriving at Florence's Santa Maria Novella station, one of Italy's finest examples of Rationalist architecture. Check in to your Florence hotel, with options such as the Hotel Rapallo or the Santa Maria Novella, and spend the afternoon free in the city. The Ponte Vecchio and the Oltrarno neighbourhood reward an evening wander.
Day 4 — Renaissance Florence
A guided walking tour leads you through the heart of Florence: the vast terracotta dome of Brunelleschi's Cathedral (the Duomo), the octagonal Baptistery with its famous gilded bronze Doors of Paradise, the Piazza della Signoria overlooked by a copy of Michelangelo's David, and the Uffizi Gallery, whose corridors hold Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Raphael's Madonnas. Optional excursions may include a cycling tour through the Chianti wine country, a day trip to Pisa and its tilting tower, or a hands-on pizza- and gelato-making class. Evenings in Florence are best spent at a candlelit osteria in the San Frediano quarter.
Day 5 — Florence to Venice
A morning free in Florence — perhaps a final visit to the Mercato Centrale for local cheeses and cured meats — before boarding a high-speed train for Venice. The journey takes just over two hours, crossing the Po Valley and then the remarkable Ponte della Libertà causeway across the lagoon before arriving at Venice's Santa Lucia station. From here, a water taxi or vaporetto carries you to your hotel: choices typically include the Hotel American Dinesen on the San Vio Canal, the Monaco & Grand Canal with its direct Grand Canal views, or the historic Baglioni Hotel Luna, a twelfth-century palazzo steps from Piazza San Marco.
Day 6 — The Floating City of Venice
A professional guide leads a morning walking tour through Venice's labyrinthine sestieri: the basilica of San Marco with its golden Byzantine mosaics, the Gothic Doge's Palace and its haunted Bridge of Sighs, the white marble arch of the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal, and the fish market that has supplied Venetian kitchens for centuries. The afternoon is free for independent exploration — optional excursions include a boat trip to the islands of Murano (famous for its blown glass) and Burano (a riot of colour-washed fishermen's houses), a private gondola ride with Prosecco on the Grand Canal, or a Venetian mask-making class. In the evening, board the water taxi to your embarkation point: tomorrow, you board the Orient Express.
Day 7 — The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
This is the day the journey transforms. Board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express at Venice Santa Lucia station, greeted by your personal cabin steward. Your cabin — whether a Historic Cabin with its fold-down berths and polished walnut panelling, a Suite with private en-suite shower, or a Grand Suite with separate bedroom, living area, Murano glass basin, and heated marble walls — is a private world from the 1920s, meticulously restored using period techniques and materials. As the train threads northward through the Veneto, the Brenner Pass, and the Austrian Alps, you settle into the rituals of the journey: afternoon tea, cocktails in the bar car with its Lalique glass panels, and a formal dinner in one of three restaurant cars — a four-course affair featuring ingredients sourced locally at each major stop, accompanied by fine wines and live piano music. The train crosses Switzerland in the night and enters France in the small hours, the locomotive drawing its golden carriages across the dark landscape toward Paris.
Day 8 — Paris: Arrival and a Night in the City of Light
Breakfast is served in your cabin or in the restaurant car as the Île-de-France countryside comes into view. The train arrives at Paris Gare de l'Est in the late morning. A private transfer takes you to your Paris hotel — typically in the Latin Quarter, with options including the boutique Villa Pantheon, the Hotel La Lanterne, or the grand InterContinental Paris Le Grand near the Opéra. The remainder of the day is free to absorb Paris at your leisure: the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d'Orsay with its Impressionist masterworks, the Seine's bouquiniste bookstalls, or simply a long lunch at a brasserie. The contrast with your Alpine night on the train makes the arrival in Paris feel like a scene from a film.
Day 9 — Departure from Paris
After a relaxed hotel breakfast, a private transfer takes you to Charles de Gaulle Airport for your homeward flight. Those wishing to extend their stay may arrange additional nights in Paris through Palace Trains, or connect onward by Eurostar to London St Pancras in under two and a half hours.
Destinations & Highlights
Rome — The Eternal City
Rome is two thousand seven hundred years of unbroken urban life compressed into one extraordinary city. The Colosseum, completed in AD 80, held up to 80,000 spectators watching gladiatorial contests; today it remains the largest amphitheatre ever built. The Roman Forum at its foot is a sun-bleached field of columns and marble pavements where the Senate deliberated and Julius Caesar was cremated. Across the Tiber, Vatican City contains Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling — painted lying on scaffolding between 1508 and 1512 — and the largest church in the world. The Trevi Fountain, designed by Nicola Salvi in 1762, is the baroque city distilled into a single thundering cascade, and the tradition of throwing a coin to ensure your return to Rome is taken entirely seriously by the millions who visit each year.
Florence — Cradle of the Renaissance
Florence is perhaps the most art-dense city on earth relative to its size. The Uffizi Gallery was built by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 to house the Medici administrative offices; its upper floors now contain one of the world's supreme collections of Renaissance painting, including Botticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus, Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, and Raphael's portraits of Pope Leo X. Brunelleschi's Dome on the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, completed in 1436, was the largest dome built since the Pantheon in Rome and remained the largest in the world for centuries; engineers still study its double-shell construction. The Accademia Gallery houses Michelangelo's original David, his 5.17-metre white marble vision of the young shepherd-warrior that has become the defining image of Renaissance idealism. Beyond its museums, Florence rewards walking: the Oltrarno neighbourhood on the south bank preserves artisan workshops, neighbourhood trattorie, and a pace of life that has not entirely surrendered to modernity.
Venice — The Floating City
Venice is built on 118 small islands separated by 177 canals and linked by 391 bridges, a feat of engineering begun in the fifth century by refugees fleeing mainland invasions and completed into the most improbable city in the world. Piazza San Marco is its centrepiece: the ornate Byzantine Basilica di San Marco, begun in 830 AD and encrusted with gold mosaics, faces the Gothic grandeur of the Doge's Palace, seat of the Venetian Republic for a thousand years. The Grand Canal curves through the city like an inverted S, lined with the marble palaces of merchant dynasties — Palazzo Ca' d'Oro, Ca' Rezzonico, the white neoclassical facade of the Palazzo Grassi — and crossed at its midpoint by the Rialto Bridge. The outer islands add further dimensions: Murano has produced handblown glass of extraordinary delicacy since the thirteenth century, while Burano's fishermen's houses, painted in competing shades of ochre, rose, cobalt, and jade, make it one of the most photographed places in Italy.
Paris — Arrival at the Journey's End
The Orient Express has always belonged to Paris as much as it belongs to the rails. Gare de l'Est, from which the original Orient Express departed in 1883, still stands on the Right Bank, a Second Empire structure of iron and glass. The city that greets you after a night on the train is the Paris of wide boulevards, wrought-iron balconies, and the golden dome of Les Invalides — a city that was radically transformed by Baron Haussmann in the 1860s and has remained the global benchmark for urban beauty ever since. The Musée d'Orsay, housed in a converted Beaux-Arts railway station, contains the world's greatest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. The Eiffel Tower, still startling after 137 years, anchors the Champ de Mars. And the city's brasseries — with their zinc bars, globe lamps, and imperious waiters — remain a civilisation in themselves.