Orient Express: Welcome aboard La Dolce Vita in Italy, starting 2024

Pre-bookings are already available for the luxury train rides across the bel paese

We’ve waited for a whole year, and it turns out we will have to wait one year more, but things in the Orient Express universe are making progress even if slowly. The famous railway service, whose wholly Italian spin-off called Orient Express ‘La Dolce Vita’, is now set to make its first departure some time in 2024.

Nevertheless, the journey is already available for pre-bookings as of 6 December. Keep in mind though that if you would like to be among the first to try it out you will also have to put up 500 euros as a deposit, which will be later deducted from the final price. The online pre-booking will get you a seat reserved as a priority traveller.

The luxury rail tourism project conceived by Arsenale SpA and Orient Express, of the Accor group, La Dolce Vita will cross Italy from North to South via six exclusive routes. What’s more, this will be possibly the first time ever when a railway service will also include specialized hotel stays. Two hotels, also bearing the brand Orient Express, will welcome passengers in Rome and Venice.

A journey back to a golden age of Italian culture

Picking the image and name of La Dolce Vita is not coincidental. Apart from it being a popular expression about leisurely life a la Italiana, it harkens back to the classic film from 1960 and its symbolic legacy about all things beautiful, stylish and carefree in Italy.

There will be 12 Deluxe cabins, 18 suites, one La Dolce Vita suite as well as a restaurant with the best international chefs and sommeliers to treat travellers to five-star dining. The interior and exterior designs are retro also bringing passengers back to the 1960s.

The various routes will take visitors from the Alps to Tuscany and the beaches of the southern coast, incorporating Venice, Rome, Matera and Palermo, along more than 16,000 km of railway lines.

Prices on La Dolce Vita start from 2,000 euros per person per night in a deluxe cabin.