Orient Express Alternatives: Five Luxury Train Journeys That Cost Less and Give You More

The question arrives most weeks, usually with a small apology attached. "We have always wanted to do the Orient Express. Is it actually worth it?"

The honest answer is that it depends on what you think you are buying, and most people are not buying what they think they are. So before the alternatives, three facts that change the shape of the decision.

The first: the Orient Express you have read about does not exist. The real one, the scheduled service that ran under that name in the European timetable, made its final journey on 12 December 2009, when sleeper train EN469 left Strasbourg for Vienna. Two days later the name disappeared from the timetables after 126 years. It was killed by high-speed rail and cheap flights, not by a lack of romance.

The second: what runs today under similar names are private luxury operations that bought the legend. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is a Belmond product using genuinely restored 1920s and 1930s carriages. It is beautiful and it is real, but it is a hotel that moves, not a historic service you are joining.

The third, and the one that surprises people: the flagship Paris to Venice journey is one night on board. From roughly £3,800 to £4,500 per person for the least expensive twin cabin, rising past £8,400 per person for a Grand Suite. Since 2024 the London portion is a Eurostar connection to Paris, booked separately, rather than a continuous vintage crossing. You board at Paris Gare de l'Est around 22:00 and step onto the platform at Venice Santa Lucia the following evening.

That is not a criticism. Dinner, breakfast, brunch, the steward, the champagne and the cabin are all in the fare, and the carriages are extraordinary. But it means the pricing works out at somewhere near £3,800 per night, which is the number worth holding in your head while you read the rest of this.

The comparison, in one table

Every price below is per person, twin share, in pounds sterling, converted at September 2026 rates, when one euro was about £0.86 and one Swiss franc about £0.91. The operators' own quotes, in their own currencies, are in the text below. The final column is the one that does the work.

Alpina's answer, in two lines

If the Orient Express appeals because of Paris, Italy and eating well on the way, the closest thing I build is the Grand Culinary Rail Journey: twelve days from Paris through Bordeaux, Lyon, Geneva and Zermatt, over the Glacier Express and the Bernina line into Bologna, Florence and Milan, with the nights in grand hotels rather than in a cabin, from CHF 18,400 for two. If it appeals because of the Alps out of the window, it is the Swiss Wellness Grand Tour, ten days across Switzerland's five great rail lines and its finest spa hotels, from CHF 16,000 for two. Both work out at a fraction of a hotel-train night, for a week and a half rather than a day.

Nothing in that table is a trick. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express really is the most expensive way to spend a night on a train in Europe, and the reason is that you are paying for one specific thing: the carriages themselves. Whether that is worth four thousand pounds is a genuine question with a genuine answer, and for some people the answer is yes.

For everyone else, here are five journeys that give you more of what you actually wanted.

1. Orient Express La Dolce Vita, for the same idea done in Italy

This is the closest direct substitute, and it carries the Orient Express name legitimately: the name itself is owned jointly by Accor and LVMH, while Belmond, also part of LVMH, runs the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. Two different trains, one contested legend. The train runs a network of routes across Italy, from Rome out to Sicily, Venice, the Dolomites and Puglia, in itineraries of one to four nights.

Fares start around €3,500 per person for a one-night, two-day journey, with deluxe cabins nearer €3,500 to €4,000 per person per night. So on a per-night basis it is not cheaper than the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. What it does differently is include the off-train excursions in the fare, and offer multi-night itineraries, which changes the value calculation considerably. Three nights at that rate starts to feel like a holiday rather than a very expensive transfer.

The design language is 1960s Italian rather than 1920s wagon-lit. If your mental image of glamour is Fellini rather than Agatha Christie, this is the better train, and I would say that even if the prices were identical.

2. Belmond Royal Scotsman, for the same operator at half the nightly rate

Belmond's Scottish train is the interesting comparison, because it is the same company, the same standard of service and roughly the same era of carriage, at a fraction of the nightly cost. Two-night journeys start around £4,800 per person, three-night classic itineraries from about £5,500, and four nights on the western route around £8,000. It runs out of Edinburgh from April to October.

Per night, that is £2,400 falling to £2,000 as the itineraries lengthen. Cabin accommodation, all meals, all drinks and the listed excursions are included, and there is a proper spa carriage.

The catch is honest and worth stating: Scotland is not the Alps or the Italian lakes. If the scenery outside the window is the point of the trip for you, this is a different proposition. If the train itself is the point, the Royal Scotsman delivers the Belmond experience with two extra nights in which to enjoy it.

3. Golden Eagle Danube Express, for the actual Orient Express route

If what you want is the journey the original train made, across central Europe and towards Istanbul, this is the operator that still does it. The Danube Express runs multi-night itineraries out of Budapest: Castles of Transylvania over seven days and six nights, Balkan Explorer over twelve days, and an eleven-day Grand Alpine Express that crosses from Budapest through Innsbruck, Zurich and the St Gotthard Pass down to Venice.

Castles of Transylvania starts around £9,800 per person twin share in a Deluxe cabin, or £12,700 in Superior Deluxe. Balkan Explorer runs from about £17,600. Those are large numbers until you divide them by six or eleven nights, at which point they land near £1,600 per night, all meals, all excursions and some five-star hotel nights included.

One thing to be aware of before you enquire: Golden Eagle does not publish fares on its own website. You will be quoted by telephone or email. That is normal in this part of the market, but it does mean you should ask directly what is and is not included, and get it in writing.

4. Glacier Express Excellence Class, for the best value in luxury rail

I have ridden the Glacier Express fourteen times and I still think Excellence Class is the most underpriced luxury experience in European rail.

Here is what it costs. You need a valid first class ticket for the full St. Moritz to Zermatt run, which is roughly CHF 250 to CHF 270 one way, plus a mandatory seat reservation of CHF 540. Call it CHF 810 per person, all in.

For that you get a guaranteed window seat in a twenty-passenger carriage, a champagne welcome with an aperitif platter, a seasonal five-course menu with matched wines, unlimited soft drinks, water and coffee, a personal concierge and access to the Glacier Bar at the rear of the train. Eight hours through the Rhine Gorge, over the Oberalp Pass and into the Matterhorn valley.

Compare that with £3,800. It is not the same product, because there is no cabin and no night on board. But if what you want is the feeling of a great train, extraordinary food and scenery that does not stop, this is the highest ratio of experience to francs anywhere on the continent.

Two practical warnings. Excellence Class runs on one train per day in each direction, it sells out roughly a year ahead, and it does not operate through most of the winter. In 2026 it is suspended between 9 and 27 March. Book early or do not count on it. I have written a fuller guide to what to book and where to sit on the Glacier Express, and a direct comparison with the Bernina Express if you are choosing between the two.

5. Alpina's Grand Culinary and Swiss Wellness journeys, where the hotels are the luxury

This is the alternative I build, so treat what follows as an interested party being straightforward with you rather than as neutral advice.

The Grand Culinary Rail Journey is the direct answer to the Orient Express. Twelve days and eleven nights from Paris to Milan, at CHF 18,400 for two people travelling together, or CHF 9,200 each. It starts with lunch at Le Train Bleu, takes the TGV to Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion, Lyon and its bouchons, then Geneva, Zermatt and the full Glacier Express before the Bernina line drops you into Italy for Bologna, Florence and Milan. Every night is in a grand hotel. The trains are first class throughout, and two of them are among the finest scenic railways in the world.

The Swiss Wellness Grand Tour is ten days, nine nights, at CHF 16,000 for two people travelling together. That is CHF 8,000 each, or around CHF 890 per night. It includes first class rail throughout, the Glacier Express, the GoldenPass line, the mountain railways, and nine nights in grand hotels above Lake Lucerne and across St. Moritz, Zermatt, Montreux and Interlaken.

The logic is simple. On the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the train is the hotel, so the entire budget goes into one night in a beautifully restored cabin that is, by the standards of a five-star suite, quite small. On a journey like this one, the trains are spectacular but they are transport, and the money goes into where you sleep, what you eat and what you actually do with your days.

Neither model is objectively correct. But for most people spending this kind of money once, nine nights in the Alps is a better memory than one night between Paris and Venice. The people I have sent on both tell me the same thing.

So which should you choose?

Strip it down to what you want most.

• You want the carriages, and the carriages are the point. Book the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express and do not let anyone talk you out of it. Nothing else on this list matches those 1920s interiors, and no amount of value analysis replaces standing in that corridor.
• You want the romance but resent the arithmetic. La Dolce Vita for two or three nights, or the Royal Scotsman. Same register, twice the trip.
• You want the historic route east. Golden Eagle Danube Express. Nobody else does it properly.
• You want the single best day on a train in Europe. Glacier Express Excellence Class, and spend what you saved on the hotels either end.
• You want a holiday rather than a train ride. A multi-day journey where the rail is the connective tissue and the hotels carry the luxury: the Grand Culinary Rail Journey if Italy and France are the draw, the Swiss Wellness Grand Tour if it is the Alps.

If it is the last of these, send me your dates and who is travelling at hello@alpinatravels.com and I will come back within a day with a proposal and an honest word on whether it beats the train you had in mind.

Questions I get asked

Is the Orient Express worth it? If you value the restored 1920s carriages above everything else, yes. If you are expecting a multi-day journey, no, because the Paris to Venice flagship is a single night on board for £3,800 or more per person. Decide which of those two people you are and the answer resolves itself.

Can you still ride the original Orient Express? No. The scheduled service ended on 14 December 2009. Today's trains are private luxury operations that licence the name and, in Belmond's case, use genuinely restored period carriages on part of the historic route.

What is the cheapest luxury train in Europe? By a wide margin, Glacier Express Excellence Class, at roughly CHF 810 per person for eight hours including a five-course lunch with wine. Among overnight trains, the longer Golden Eagle itineraries work out cheapest per night at around £1,600.

How far ahead do I need to book? Glacier Express Excellence Class sells out around a year in advance. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express and the Royal Scotsman book six to twelve months out for peak dates. If you are set on a particular week in summer, assume a year.

Is a luxury train better than a luxury hotel journey? They are different products sold at similar prices. A luxury train buys you the vehicle. A curated rail journey buys you the destinations and puts you on excellent trains between them. The question is whether you would rather spend your money on the moving part or the staying part.

If you are still deciding

I have travelled on most of these and I have no interest in talking anyone out of a train they have wanted to ride for thirty years. If it is the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express you want, book it, and I will happily tell you which cabin to ask for.

But if what you actually want is Europe by rail, at that standard, for longer, then that is what I build. Have a look at the Swiss Wellness Grand Tour or the Grand Culinary Rail Journey, or write to me with your dates and what you have in mind, and I will tell you honestly whether I can better the alternative you are considering.

And if the train on your list is Canadian rather than European, I have written the same comparison for the Rocky Mountaineer.