An Orient Express rail journey from Stockholm to Copenhagen (2024)

• The Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express is best known for journeys to rail Italy
• However, this fabled train service also covers major cities in Scandinavia
• It is possible to take a train journey between Stockholm and Copenhagen
  

By Martin Symington

Published: 10:58, 10 September 2014 | Updated: 15:02, 11 September 2014

A whistle blasts as the ‘Orient Express’ slides out of Stockholm’s Central Station. Hugo, our aqua blue-uniformed steward pops a bottle of prosecco.

‘Farewell, fair city,’ he says, saluting the shrinking skyline.

For all its easy-going, egalitarian image, Sweden’s capital is an imperial city of gracious facades and plume-helmeted cavalry guarding a royal residence bigger than Buckingham Palace.

No wonder the world’s most illustrious train seems so at home here.

My wife, Hennie, and I have flown in to join her on a jaunt to Copenhagen, the first leg of the train’s journey home to Venice.

For us, it is a case of relishing the romantic opulence of 1920s-style rail travel, book-ended by another in each of two historic Scandinavian capitals.

We stay in regal style at the harbour side Grand Hotel, where Orient Express sets up its check-in desk in a lobby which, alarmingly, is swirling with silk gowns and gents in white tie.

Suddenly they all sweep off into a gilded hall to meet His Majesty King Carl Gustaf.

Not our fellow travellers after all. Phew.

It is a shortish walk to the Central Station, where the gold-lettered, navy carriages stretch along the platform. We settle into our mahogany-panelled cabin. There is a washbasin in a corner cabinet, but loos are in a shared compartment down the corridor (another touch of 1920s authenticity).

Nor are there showers - which is why every night on board is followed by a city hotel stay.

This privately-run train is not exactly heir to the renowned service immortalised by Agatha Christie which connected European cities with Istanbul.

On the other hand, the Twenties and Thirties vintage rail coaches restored by the Venice Simplon Orient-Express (VSOE) company clearly share the same gene pool.

Calais-to-Venice is the train’s stock-in-trade. But these days the company sets its bounds wider, with numerous different European departures.

Modern trains designed for speed and with wi-fi can make the journey down Sweden’s east coast and over the Oresund Bridge to Copenhagen in less than five hours.

However, the point of this venture is to stretch and savour the experience, so instead we strike out first across central Sweden towards Gothenburg.

From here, our meandering route takes us down the west coast to Malmo on the country’s southern tip, facing the Danish capital. Between dark tunnels we snake alongside lakes and through forests of fir hung with lichen beards.

But bewitching though the landscape proves, for most people the focus of this trip is the on-board scenery. Dinner is the principal event, served in a trio of dining cars decorated with art deco marquetry and Lalique glass panels. Hennie slips on a chic mauve dress, I change into my suit and tie and we settle down à deux to chef Christian Bodiguel’s four-course dinner.

The menu fuses Michelin star-standard classical French with Nordic twists; fillets of reindeer marinated in aquavit, cooked in a cloudberry sauce.

Ah, cloudberries, those silky golden nuggets of appley rapture from the Arctic. What a touch.

After that we have digestifs in the bar car, where a pianist in a silver suit sits at a baby grand tinkling melodies including several Abba tunes (inevitable, I suppose). At least half the company is Scandinavian, and a few liqueurs later an impromptu singalong breaks out.

Meanwhile, Hugo is busy transforming the velvet bench seats of our cabin into roomy upper and lower bunks made up with crisp linen.

‘Whose turn is it to go on top?’ giggles a tipsy lady down the corridor to her tuxedoed beau. Hugo’s sangfroid holds firm: The pinnacle of sophisticated travel this train may be, but I get the impression he is used to hearing variations on this bit of ribaldry.

The train rocks us to sleep. Lights flicker across the window blind as Swedish stations and a Viking incarnation of Hercule Poirot weaves in and out of my dreams.

We awake to glimpses of inlets on the Kattegat Sea. Croissants, coffee and fruit are served in our cabin as local people film us from bridges and level crossings.

When we stop at Ängelholm station, the platform is thronged with fans. We feel like film stars, though the real celebrity is the train.

In the end there is a snag. The only locomotive allowed to haul these carriages over the Oresund Bridge lacks a licence to pull passengers. So we wave goodbye to the Orient Express - or rather, the staff all line up on the platform and wave to us - at Malmo.

We cross the 12-km bridge in a plush bus, leaving our luggage to continue in grandeur on the otherwise empty train, and miraculously it reappears in our Copenhagen hotel room. Magic.