La Dolce Vita Orient Express Begins Service Across Italy

On 3 April 2025, a ribbon was cut at Roma Ostiense Station and Italy acquired its first private luxury train. La Dolce Vita Orient Express — a collaboration between Arsenale and Orient Express, supported by Fondazione FS Italiane and FS Treni Turistici Italiane — entered service the following day, carrying its first passengers on the ‘Tastes of Tuscan Vineyards’ itinerary to Montalcino. It is the opening chapter of what is intended to become a six-train fleet, and a deliberate attempt to position Italy as the originator of a category its makers describe as ‘rail cruising’.

The premise is unhurried travel as the point of the journey rather than the means to an end. Eight curated itineraries traverse 14 Italian regions, threading together names that read like a survey of the country’s best-known and least-rushed corners: Venice and Portofino, Siena and Matera, Montalcino and Nizza Monferrato, alongside multiple Sicilian destinations. The intention is to let the landscape pass slowly, with the train itself functioning as the principal address.

That address has been built with some care. The 31 cabins were restored from original Z1 Italian model carriages, with the craftsmanship carried out between Brindisi and Palermo — a reminder that this is a refurbishment of Italian rolling stock rather than an import. The accommodation comprises a single La Dolce Vita Suite, 18 suites and 12 deluxe cabins, a modest count that keeps the experience closer to a small ship than a conventional service train.

The interiors are the work of Milan’s Dimorestudio, the practice founded by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci, and they reach back to the Italian design golden age for their references. There are geometric echoes of Gio Ponti and the sensual modernism of Gae Aulenti, with Osvaldo Borsani also named among the touchstones. The result is pitched as mid-century Italian glamour rather than pastiche — a register that suits a train named for an era of cinematic ease.

Gastronomy aboard has been entrusted to Heinz Beck, the three-Michelin-star chef best known in Italy for his Rome restaurant, who has composed menus inspired by the regions the train traverses. The approach mirrors the itineraries themselves: dining that shifts with geography rather than presenting a fixed carte, so that the meal becomes a form of orientation as much as sustenance.

The journey begins before boarding. A dedicated La Dolce Vita Lounge at Roma Ostiense Station, designed by the artist-architect Hugo Toro, gives passengers a point of departure with a character of its own — a lacquered tangerine ceiling and an aperitivo service to mark the transition from city to train. It is a sensible piece of choreography: the ritual of waiting becomes part of the experience rather than an inconvenience preceding it.

For a discerning traveller, the proposition is best understood as a slow-travel format rather than a transport upgrade. The small cabin count, the regional menus and the route-led design all point toward immersion over coverage; this is a train to settle into for the duration of an itinerary, not a means of reaching a single destination quickly. The eight routes offer a way to read Italy laterally — vineyards, hill towns and coastline encountered in sequence — and the Montalcino opening sets the tone with Tuscany and its wine country.

The launch also sits within a broader expansion. Orient Express now operates beyond rail, with the sailing yacht Orient Express Corinthian among its assets, and has hotels planned for Rome and Venice across 2025 and 2026. La Dolce Vita is the first of an intended six trains, so the eight itineraries available now represent the beginning of a network rather than its full extent. For those inclined to book early, the appeal lies in experiencing the format in its inaugural season — and in the particular pleasure of a country’s first private train running on carriages it built itself.

Source: Accor