A new Paris-to-Monaco itinerary aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient Express debuts in May 2027 and returns the train to a place that shaped its history.
Sometime after breakfast, the red cliffs of the Massif de l’Estérel drop away, the Mediterranean fills the window, and the Côte d’Azur starts to unspool past a midnight-blue carriage. From next spring, that view leads somewhere new.
A Glorious New Chapter
The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, A Belmond Train, will run its first journey from Paris to Monte Carlo on 10 May 2027. It’s the first time the train has stopped in Monaco and Belmond says the route will run every year, with the principality also becoming a stop on the train’s onward journey to Venice.
The trip starts the usual way, on a Paris platform. Guests can book a Historic Cabin, a Suite or a Grand Suite, each a different take on the train’s Art Deco interiors. For full privacy there is L’Observatoire, a carriage created with the French artist JR that features its own bedroom, an en suite with a freestanding bathtub, a library and a hidden tearoom. Taking a bath while the Riviera slides past is the kind of detail people will tell stories about for years to come.
Evenings follow a familiar rhythm. Dinner is served in one of two restaurant cars, Étoile du Nord or L’Oriental. Afterwards, guests drift towards Bar Car “3674” for cocktails and live piano music that runs late into the night.
The new part comes at dawn. Stewards bring pastries, pressed juices and coffee to each cabin as the train runs along the coast through Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Nice. Near the end, the line cuts into the mountainside. It arrives at Monaco-Monte-Carlo station, which is built deep inside the rock, so passengers step off underground in one of Europe’s most glamorous postcodes.
A Return to Where it Began
For the train itself, the trip is something of a homecoming. Two of the train’s original carriages were bought at auction in Monte Carlo in 1977 and that sale set off the restoration that became the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express travelling today.
The route builds on Belmond’s recent push towards slower, destination-led rail trips. The Villeggiatura by Train series, now in its second year, links the train with Belmond hotels in Italian cities, while the company’s 2027 programme includes coastal journeys from Paris to Portofino and to the Amalfi Coast. Adding Monaco brings the French Riviera into that collection.
The price includes the overnight journey, round-the-clock steward service, all meals with wine chosen by the sommelier, unlimited soft drinks and transfers.
Monte Carlo has never been short of grand entrances. Arriving by sleeper, after a night of piano music and a breakfast spent watching the Riviera roll by, may now be the most old-fashioned of them all.
