Travel · November 2026 · 4 min read
Paris to Monaco, Overnight
From May 2027, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express will stop in Monte Carlo. One night on board, the Riviera at breakfast and a reminder of what travel used to feel like
Perhaps the most luxurious thing about a journey is not where it ends, but how long you are allowed to take. We have become very good at getting from A to B. A flight from Paris to Nice takes about as long as a long lunch, and somewhere between security, boarding and baggage claim, the actual journey has almost disappeared. Which makes the news from Belmond all the more charming: from May 2027, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express will travel from Paris to Monaco for the first time, overnight, along the Côte d'Azur. Monte Carlo becomes a new stop on the train's route from Paris to Venice, and according to Belmond, it will return every year.
Let's be honest, there are faster ways to reach Monaco. But that is exactly the point. You board in Paris in the evening, the city slowly disappears behind the window, and dinner is served in one of two restaurant cars, the Étoile du Nord or L'Oriental. Afterwards, the evening continues in Bar Car 3674, with cocktails and live piano music, the kind of setting that seems to have been invented for long conversations. At some point you go to bed in a dark blue Art Deco cabin, and when you wake up, the landscape has changed completely. Breakfast comes with pastries, freshly pressed juice and a view of the sea.
Luxury used to mean getting somewhere faster than everyone else. Today it increasingly means being allowed to arrive slowly.
The route itself reads like a postcard collection. The train follows the coast past the red cliffs of the Massif de l'Estérel, through Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Nice, before the line cuts into the mountainside near Monaco. The final stop is Monte Carlo station, which lies deep inside the rock. There is something almost cinematic about it: one moment you are travelling along the sea, the next you step out into the heart of a city that is famous for its casino, its harbour and its Grand Prix.
"Monaco has long held a special place in the story of European travel," says Pascal Deyrolle, Area Managing Director for Trains in Continental Europe at Belmond. And that is hard to argue with. Few places are so closely linked to the idea of glamorous arrival. Monaco has never been a destination you simply reach. It is a place where you make an entrance, and a vintage train pulling into a station carved into the rock may be one of the most elegant ways to do it.
Of course, this kind of romance has its price. The overnight journey from Paris to Monaco starts at 4,870 euros per person, based on two guests sharing a Historic Cabin. That includes a steward who is there around the clock, all meals with wines chosen by the sommelier, unlimited soft drinks and transfers. If you want more space, there are Grand Suites, and then there is L'Observatoire, a carriage designed by the French artist JR, with its own bedroom, a bathroom with a freestanding bathtub, a living area, a library and a hidden tearoom. Even on a train that is already a legend, this is the cabin people talk about.
Why slow travel feels new again
What makes the Orient-Express so interesting right now is not nostalgia alone. It is the fact that it offers something most luxury travel can no longer promise: time that is not optimised. Nobody on board is in a hurry, and nothing suggests that the next appointment is already waiting. The train does not compete with a plane on speed. It competes with it on experience. And in a world in which almost every journey can be booked, tracked and rated within seconds, a night on rails suddenly feels like a small act of rebellion.
Maybe that is also why trains like this are enjoying such attention. Luxury used to mean getting somewhere faster than everyone else. Today it increasingly means being allowed to arrive slowly. To dress for dinner, to listen to a piano in a bar car, to fall asleep in Paris and to wake up somewhere between the mountains and the Mediterranean. Not because it is practical, but because it is beautiful.
So if you are already thinking about spring 2027, here is a thought. Monaco will still be Monaco. The casino will still be the casino, and the harbour will still be full of yachts. But the way you get there could be the part of the trip you remember the longest.
