The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is a private luxury train service that travels from London to Venice. Traveling on the Orient Express across Europe is a romantic, nostalgic and luxurious experience.

The craftsmanship that went into creating the original carriages would be very difficult to replicate – inlaid wood, frosted glass reliefs and chromed fittings. These wonderfully engineered pieces of railway rolling stock date back to the 1920s and 1930s. The whole ensemble oozes history.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express

The original company was founded by James Sherwood of Kentucky, USA, in 1982; five years earlier, in 1977, he had bought two of the original carriages at auction when the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits withdrew from the Orient Express service, passing the service on to the national railways of France, Germany, and Austria. Over the next few years, Sherwood spent a total of $16 million purchasing 35 sleeper, restaurant and Pullman carriages. On 25 May 1982, the first London-Venice run was made.

It is currently owned by Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. The company owns 50 luxury hotels, restaurants, tourist trains and river cruises in 24 countries.