A direct train from Paris to Milan is a game-changer for travellers. I was on the first service

Telegraph

10-04-2025

The problem with catching a train from Paris is that you have to go to Paris, which has Parisians in it. I was born in Paris to a local dad, so I'm allowed to say that. Tough crowd. Or rather, they used to be. Because something odd happened when I arrived on the 8am train from St Pancras last week. People were smiling. Waiters were affable. Things looked clean(er). That ain't the Paris I know. 'A 'be nice' memo must've gone round ahead of the Olympics,' I thought, as I sipped on a comfortingly bad, perversely expensive coffee in the Gare du Nord.
I was due to catch a high-speed direct train to Milan on relaunch day. In 2023, a landslide covered the tracks in France's Maurienne Valley, halting the service. Following a €13.5m restoration project, the line has reopened with five services daily. My plan: stop and scoff in underrated Turin before checking into super-swish Portrait Milano at the end of the line – all the while feeling smug that I'd be making an 80 per cent carbon saving by not flying.
The sun was shining in that sharp, vernal way that makes Haussmann look new, so I committed to the low-carbon schtik by cycling over to the Gare de Lyon – 17 minutes instead of 34 in a taxi and a damn sight cheaper. Follow the new 'Paris 2024'-stencilled cycling paths and you've got yourself a lovely pootle that takes in the new Notre-Dame along the Seine.
For lunch, I had intended on treating myself to some rococo lamb at Le Train Bleu in the station, but it was booked until Judgement Day, so I sauntered into Marius, a smart new brasserie immediately below, for its prix fixe. Beaming staff served three neat, nourishing plates and a demi for under €40. By this point, it felt as if Paris was gaslighting me. But the day just continued unfolding like a musical – Les Agréables.
My train, Trenitalia's Frecciarossa 1000, was an exciting Golden Age of Speed -looking thing. Inside, its sporty grey bucket seats were surprisingly comfortable, with a dignified amount of leg space. It was fast (up to 300 kph), quiet and, because it's Italian, there was decent coffee for €1.50.
Speaking of reasonable prices: tickets start at €29, while a journey from London to Milan, booked through the Trainline app, starts at £122.89. I'd pay double to avoid the 5am shakedown at Stansted. 'The Paris to Milan line is part of a wider success story across Europe,' said Sarah Helppi, Trainline's UK country director. 'As more rail lines open up to new operators, competition is increasing, prices are coming down and demand is going up.'
The train through France is especially lovely for its rapidly changing scenery: flat arable turns to forest to vines to the snow-cloaked splendour of the pre-Alps. It's like a very long postcard. We slowed down considerably in the mountains – all the better to look out and up at those dusky peaks – and I called my mother with an update. 'You sound like you're in a good mood,' she replied.
Exactly six hours later, I was walking over the road from Turin Porta Nuova station to the recently revamped Turin Palace Hotel. Bags were dumped and I hopped on an Uber scooter to the new Madama Piola Vini e Piattini for an avalanche of Piedmontese small plates and ballsy barbera by the glass. Their plin – veal-filled fresh pasta – with caramelised Normandy butter sauce was unbearably good. The beef-cheek bon bons with hazelnut mayonnaise too.
I woke up still full, so skipped breakfast and went for a walk along the city's arcades with local guide Stefano Ricca, who didn't miss a beat in his account of the city's story. House of Savoy, who built and ran the place for 900 years, had a penchant for pared-back baroque, so the city is all straight lines and easy to navigate. 'Everything about Torino is square,' said Stefano, 'even its people.' (Read: less hot-blooded than other Italians.)
Go to Palazzo Madama to see the history of the city in one place. Roman ruins are visible beneath a glass floor and above it is an exhibition of hand-drawn maps showing how the city's progress over the centuries. Up in the view-porn lookout tower, Stefano pointed to a set of unassuming blue doors near the Royal Palace: 'San Lorenzo, the city's most beautiful church, is hidden in there.' Architecture anoraks will swoon for the slightly unnerving Torre Littoria opposite, built to house Mussolini's cronies, now Rationalism's best effort.
Turin also has a thing for cars, chocolate, clothes, cinema, vermouth and Belle Époque coffee shops. We stopped at Stratta, a family-run confetteria on the theatrical Piazza San Carlo, for a civilised espresso and some hazelnut chocolate. 'This is where the precursor to Ferrero Rocher was born,' waxed Stefano, as I made one disappear. 'Some say the reason Turin became the first capital of united Italy was because of its favour-making chocolate.' Lunch was more delightful pasta – mezzi paccheri with braised onion cream, veal and Parmesan – at Stefano's favourite spot, Pastificio De Filippis.
Turin has 52 museums, but I was swayed by actor Linda Messerklinger (a friend of a friend) to visit the National Cinema Museum. We met in the art nouveau glow of the Galleria Subalpina after her day on the set of Paolo Sorrentino's latest film. 'I'm a star, you know?' she declared as we wandered through the museum's brilliant James Cameron exhibition (on until June 15). The building is worth the visit alone.
The most Italian day of all time then red-lined when I visited Osteria Rabezzana for dinner paired with live opera (every Wednesday). Butter-soft mountain lamb and gale-force Puccini is quite the way to finish a stay in Turin.
Milan was Milan: brash, beautiful and – with Design Week about to kick off – busy. But that's why you go. At the historic, high-fashion Portrait Milano, you're ushered through a late-Renaissance stone portal into the cloistered courtyard of what was once Europe's oldest seminary.
I parked myself at the bar for a spritz (did you know Milan invented happy hour?) and some first-rate people watching. Couture-clad patrons give the place genuine swagger, while design cues call on the blonde walnut and rattan panels of 1950s Milanese living rooms. A walk around the first-floor colonnaded loggia felt like a waltz through time, and my suite – with its tonnes of marble – looked like the sort of place cardinals repair to during conclave.
My second-favourite activity was a session in the Longevity Spa's -90°C cryo chamber, because it afforded me the necessary extra life points to drink 'Tobacco' Manhattans upstairs. Dinner was down the road, at uber-trendy La Specialità, where the Culatello di Zibello ham with Andria burrata will make you wish your mum had married an Italian instead.
If you can be bothered to leave the hotel, check out free-to-enter Cortile Del Museo Della Moda, and see what Armani and Chloé were making in the Eighties. Then rush back to your suite, crack open some Franciacorta on one of its two balconies, and toast Trenitalia's dignified return to form.
Portrait Milano offers rooms starting from £890 per night, based on two adults sharing and excluding breakfast. London to Milan, booked through the Trainline app, starts at £122.89.