Venice-Simplon Orient Express

You just have to make them aware that it exists.

So I find, you know, when I'm out talking about Belmond, I'll say, so, you know, we have the amazing Copacabana Palace in Rio, or we have Villa San Michele in Fiesole in Florence, and we have the Venice Simplon Orient Express, and they say...

What? Wait, what? And when it is brought to their attention, that is the thing that pops.

Of course, they're going to go to Copa.

But they've heard of them.

They know them.

For them, this idea of the Venice Simplon Orient Express or the Royal Scotsman or the Britannic Explorer, those are kind of dreams.

They're not even sure that it exists.

Christie's novel would even make the Orient Express a household name.

And today, that very name lives on through the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.

This service uses meticulously restored carriages from the 1920s and '30s, many of which carry remarkable histories of their own.

For instance, sleeping car 3309, which was one of the cars famously marooned on that fateful snowy train ride that Christie herself rode.

But Mary Devenham is practically vibrating with anxiety.

She is terrified of missing her connection to the Simplon Orient Express in Istanbul.

She loses her composure completely.

But then, days later, when they are trapped in a massive snowbank with an actual dead body.

What was it about then?

It was a positioning.

She needed to be on that specific train, the Simplon Orient Express, at a specific time.

Ah, I see.