Paris to Istanbul / Istanbul to Paris
Paris ↔ Istanbul
Few journeys on earth carry the weight of legend that accompanies the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express on its Paris to Istanbul run. Spanning five nights and six days, this epic overland crossing traces the original Orient Express route through the heart of Europe — France, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and finally Turkey — aboard 18 lovingly restored carriages from the 1920s and 1940s. It is one of only two departures offered each year, which means every seat is a rare privilege.
The journey balances three nights of swaying, candlelit travel aboard the train with two nights in landmark hotels in Budapest and Bucharest, each paired with private guided excursions. You visit Peles Castle in the Carpathian mountains, cruise the Danube, gaze across the Black Sea at Varna, and wake on the sixth morning to the minarets of Istanbul rising above the Thracian Plain. From Paris Gare de l'Est to Istanbul Halkalı, the route covers more than 3,000 kilometres of ever-changing European landscape.
Throughout the adventure the train itself sets the tone: Art Deco marquetry panels, Lalique glass, polished brass fittings, silver-service dinners in three distinctive dining cars, and the legendary Bar Car 3674 with its resident pianist. Dress codes are formal at dinner; the conversation is cosmopolitan; and the sense of travelling through time, as well as across a continent, is palpable at every stop. Contact Palace Trains at 1-800-724-5120 or travel@palacetours.com for availability and pricing on this extraordinary journey.
- ✦Board the legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express at Paris Gare de l'Est
- ✦Private guided city tour and Danube river cruise in Budapest
- ✦Exclusive visit to fairy-tale Peleș Castle in the Carpathian mountains
- ✦Bucharest orientation tour including the monumental Palace of the Parliament
- ✦A pause at Varna to gaze across the Black Sea from the train platform
- ✦Three nights in Art Deco cabins with silver-service dinners and a resident pianist
- ✦Iconic arrival in Istanbul — where East meets West across 3,000 kilometres of Europe
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Paris
Your adventure begins at Paris Gare de l'Est, one of the great Victorian railway stations of Europe. In the mid-afternoon, a white-gloved steward escorts you to your cabin as the restored Pullman cars fill with the clinking of welcome champagne flutes. The train eases out of Paris and rolls east through Alsace as evening falls. A formal four-course dinner is served across two sittings in one of three Art Deco dining cars — Côte d'Azur, Étoile du Nord, or L'Orientale — each adorned with original Lalique glass panels and marquetry inlaid with exotic woods. After dinner, the legendary Bar Car 3674 comes alive with a resident pianist and expertly made cocktails as the lights of France give way to the darkness of the Rhine valley beyond the windows.
Day 2 — Through Austria to Budapest
Wake to a continental breakfast delivered to your cabin as the train curves through the Austrian Alps and descends into the broad Hungarian plain. Lunch is served in the dining car amid scenery that shifts from mountain passes to the great Pannonian steppe. By afternoon the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express glides into Budapest, where guests transfer to a luxury hotel for the night — typically the grand Hilton Budapest Castle or a comparable five-star property overlooking the Danube. A private cocktail reception and dinner await, offering a first taste of Hungarian hospitality against the illuminated backdrop of the Chain Bridge and the Parliament building.
Day 3 — Budapest
The morning is devoted to a private guided city tour of Budapest, taking in the sweeping panorama from Fishermen's Bastion on Castle Hill, the neo-Gothic grandeur of the Hungarian Parliament Building on the Pest bank, and the majestic Heroes' Square with its Millennium Monument honouring the Magyar chieftains. Lunch is enjoyed at a celebrated local restaurant. The afternoon brings a scenic Danube river cruise, the best way to appreciate the UNESCO-listed riverfront in its full splendour. By early evening you reboard the train, which departs south-east toward Romania as dinner is served and the great river disappears behind you.
Day 4 — Sinaia & Bucharest
Breakfast arrives in your cabin as the train climbs into the Carpathian mountains of Romania, passing through forested valleys and dramatic gorges. The first stop is the mountain resort town of Sinaia, where passengers disembark for a guided tour of Peleș Castle — a breathtaking neo-Renaissance palace built in 1883 as the summer residence of King Carol I. Considered one of the most beautiful royal residences in Europe, the castle houses 160 rooms decorated with Murano glass chandeliers, Cordoba leather walls, Flemish tapestries, and one of the finest collections of European arms and armour. After the tour, the train continues down from the mountains to Bucharest, the Romanian capital. A city orientation tour introduces guests to broad Belle Époque boulevards, the monumental Palace of the Parliament — the world's second-largest administrative building — and the charming old town. Overnight at the JW Marriott Grand Hotel Bucharest or similar, with a private group dinner at an exclusive venue.
Day 5 — Across Bulgaria & the Black Sea at Varna
After rejoining the train and crossing the wide arc of the Danube into Bulgaria, the journey enters some of its most quietly magnificent terrain. The train rolls south through the fertile Danubian Plain and the Valley of the Thracian Kings, an archaeologically rich landscape dotted with Thracian burial mounds. In the afternoon the train makes a brief stop at Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, where passengers step onto the platform to breathe the salt air and take in the vast, silver expanse of the sea — a moment of unexpected drama that has become one of the journey's most talked-about interludes. Lunch and a final celebratory dinner are served aboard as the train crosses the Balkan mountains and descends toward the Turkish border during the night.
Day 6 — Istanbul
As dawn breaks you are already in Turkey, rolling across the wide, golden Thracian Plain. A Turkish-inspired lunch — the last meal aboard — is served as anticipation builds. Shortly after, the skyline of Istanbul appears: minarets, domes, and the shimmering waters of the Bosphorus. The train arrives at Istanbul Halkalı station, bringing to a close one of the world's great railway journeys. Passengers who wish to extend their stay will find no shortage of wonders: the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Topkapı Palace, the Grand Bazaar, and a city that has stood at the crossroads of civilisations for two and a half millennia.
Destinations & Highlights
Paris — City of Departures
Paris Gare de l'Est has been the gateway to Eastern Europe since 1849, and it was from here that the original Orient Express departed in 1883. Today the station retains its magnificent Belle Époque façade, and the act of boarding the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express beneath its great iron canopy is a deliberate piece of theatre — the first scene in a six-day drama. The city itself needs little introduction, but arriving or departing via its storied rail terminus connects travellers to a very particular Parisian romance: the romance of departure.
Budapest — Pearl of the Danube
Budapest is consistently ranked among the most beautiful capitals in Europe, and the journey devotes a full day and a half to exploring it. The city is divided by the Danube into hilly, medieval Buda and flat, cosmopolitan Pest. Buda Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, crowns the western hill alongside the pastel towers of Fishermen's Bastion and the ornate Matthias Church. Across the river, the Hungarian Parliament Building — completed in 1904 and the largest building in Hungary — is a neo-Gothic masterpiece best seen from the water, making the Danube cruise a near-essential experience. Budapest is also renowned for its thermal bath culture, its vibrant ruin-bar scene, and a culinary heritage built on goulash, chimney cake, and Tokaji wine.
Sinaia & Peleș Castle — Carpathian Jewel
Sinaia sits at 800 metres in the Prahova Valley of the Southern Carpathians, surrounded by pine forests and the jagged ridgelines of the Bucegi Mountains. The town grew up around its Sinaia Monastery (founded 1695) but achieved fame when Peleș Castle was constructed here between 1873 and 1914 for King Carol I of Romania. Styled in a German Neo-Renaissance idiom and set among terraced gardens, the castle's 160 rooms are filled with Flemish tapestries, Murano chandeliers, Moorish halls, and a remarkable collection of medieval weaponry. It was among the first European castles wired for electricity and is widely considered one of the finest examples of 19th-century royal architecture on the continent. A visit to Peleș is routinely cited by passengers as the highlight of the land excursions on this journey.
Bucharest — Little Paris of the East
Romania's capital earned its early-20th-century sobriquet through its wide boulevards, French-influenced architecture, and vibrant café culture. The city was substantially rebuilt under the communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, most dramatically in the form of the colossal Palace of the Parliament — begun in 1984, it contains 1,100 rooms across 365,000 square metres and is the second-largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon. Bucharest's Old Town (Lipscani district), however, remains a delightful warren of medieval lanes, Orthodox churches, and bohemian restaurants. The Romanian Athenaeum concert hall, a landmark of the city, and the grand Calea Victoriei boulevard offer a flavour of the pre-war elegance that earned the city its French nickname.
Varna — Bulgaria's Black Sea Window
Varna is Bulgaria's third-largest city and its principal Black Sea port, with a history stretching back to the ancient Greek colony of Odessos founded around 580 BC. For Orient Express passengers the stop is brief — a platform interlude — but the view across the Black Sea is unforgettable: a body of water that has no tides, whose depths are anoxic, and whose shores have been contested by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, and Russians for millennia. The city itself contains an outstanding Archaeological Museum housing the Varna Gold Treasure, the world's oldest processed gold objects dating to 4600–4200 BC.
Istanbul — Where Europe Meets Asia
No city on the itinerary carries more symbolic weight than Istanbul, the ancient capital of three empires — Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman. The train's arrival here is the culmination of a journey that has crossed seven countries and more than three thousand kilometres. The city's greatest monuments cluster around the old peninsula of Sultanahmet: the 6th-century Hagia Sophia, converted from cathedral to mosque to museum and back to mosque; the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque), its six minarets visible from the Sea of Marmara; the Topkapı Palace, home of the Ottoman sultans for four centuries; and the Grand Bazaar, with over 4,000 shops spread across 61 covered streets. A short ferry crossing over the Bosphorus takes visitors literally from Europe to Asia in fifteen minutes — a geographic wonder that perfectly captures the city's unique position as the hinge of two continents.