I've found Europe's best sleeper train — and at just £62 you'll need to be quick

Times

24-07-2025

What does 'dolce vita' mean to you? Maybe it's the film — Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg giving 1960s glamour in the Trevi Fountain. Maybe it's a state of mind — effortless elegance with a side of excellent food. Or maybe it's slow travel through the bel paese — April marked the launch of La Dolce Vita Orient Express, an overnight train as luxurious as it is expensive, from £3,605 for 24 hours.
But I know another dolce vita train. It's significantly cheaper (from £62 for 18 hours) and a little less plush. Yet stepping on to it — my bags carried by a burgundy-jacketed carriage attendant — I still gasped with delight. As we trundled alongside Roman walls and emerged into the Lazio countryside, I found myself inexplicably emotional. Maybe it was watching eager travellers clink glasses in the scarlet-chaired restaurant as jazz tinkled in the background. Maybe it was nostalgia on this retro train, studded with vintage photos from the glory days of travel. Maybe it was listening to the multilingual announcements — Italian, French, then English — narrating our journey up the Mediterranean coastline. Or it could, I suppose, have been the prosecco.
This time-travelling train, the Espresso Riviera, is a limited edition. It'll run weekly until the end of August from Rome to Marseille and back. It leaves Rome just before 8pm each Friday, proceeds up the Tyrrhenian coastline overnight and reaches Genoa at dawn. Then it continues along the Italian Riviera, before crossing the French border and sweeping along the Côte d'Azur, arriving at Marseille just before 2pm on Saturday. Turning straight around, it reaches Sanremo for sunset and is back in Rome at 6.48am on Sunday.
Eighteen hours on a single train sounds like a lower circle of purgatory and — as a reluctant regular on the Rome-Palermo Intercity Notte — my general opinion of sleepers is to avoid them whenever possible. But this? This is different. It's an unabashed wallow in the golden era of train travel, so is railway heaven.
The operator, FS Treni Turistici Italiani, launched in 2023 as the luxury, leisure-focused arm of FS Italiane, the Italian state railway organisation. It runs a handful of routes a year and, until now, hadn't appealed to me — a Rome-Dolomites weekend jaunt (nice for Romans); Milan-Nice (beautiful but short). But Rome to Marseille? Waking up on the Italian Riviera? Chugging along the Cote d'Azur? Count me in — especially if I could build it into a no-fly journey from Italy to the UK.
At Termini, the gargantuan station in Rome, the departures board glowed with extra joie de vivre. Salerno, Venezia, Milano … Marseille! On platform 22 stood a hulking diesel locomotive — so far, so Intercity. But the carriages attached to it were more Orient Express — striped navy and jade; those burgundy-blazered attendants (one for each carriage) welcoming passengers aboard.
These are 1990s Intercity carriages, rescued from retirement and refurbished, with five classes pairing 21st-century standards with mid-century style. I took these trains in my youth — they were horrid, even to a penniless student; but horrid no more. Second class alone makes a mockery of first class on UK trains — individual compartments of six plush armchairs, upholstered in royal blue (get one to yourself, raise the arms and sleep across them, as one couple did).
• Discover our full guide to France
The first-class compartments are great for daytime — four velvet armchairs separated by elegant tables, with magazine racks and USB points (regular first class is a velvety version of second). The couchettes are six-seaters that fold down into beds, while the private cabins (sold out at present, but keep checking) are just gorgeous — a wide, blue-velvet armchair, foldout desk, basin and bunkbeds that unfurl into yet more armchairs in the morning.
At the end of each carriage is a unisex toilet with art deco-like ribbing on the ceiling (a cheerful cleaning team kept things spotless). The carriages are carpeted in scarlet.
• Discover our full guide to Italy
But back to the journey. From Termini we crossed Rome underground, emerging into rural Lazio to chase the sun as it set over the Ostia coast. As we turned north, flashing past golden beaches and marinas twinkling in the dusk, I hit the restaurant. How brilliantly old-school to be seated opposite a stranger and served ragu-swirled pasta, pepper-doused chicken and lashings of Ligurian red as we put the world to rights. By the time we staggered out we were rattling round the Maremma coast; in bed — a real mattress and topper, no less, though it's still a rickety, noisy sleeper — I watched on Google Maps as the train inched towards Livorno. Later I opened the curtains to find us slipping through Cinque Terre, the moon reflecting in the sea like a torch, spotlighting the sleeping villages.
By 6.30am we were rumbling into Genoa. An hour later, a white-jacketed waiter was serving me a cappuccino and croissant in the restaurant as the Italian Riviera raced past — all never-ending beach and 8am swimmers. Accordion music filled the restaurant car, the onboard musician signalling that we were approaching France.
Ah yes, the border. Ventimiglia stands just east of it but is a world away in rail terms. France and Italy use different voltages for their railways, which meant that our carriages would have to be detached from the Italian locomotive and hitched to a French one. This was a project of cross-border co-operation. For an hour I watched as the locomotives waltzed around each other. Off came the Intercity head, revving off towards France before it switched tracks and slid into a siding; from that siding emerged an SNCF locomotive, which shimmied over the tracks and reversed into us, hitting the second-class carriage with a satisfying clunk.
And then, stress in two languages. Nobody was sure what happened. Did that clunk break a brake? Did the French have an outdated manual? Official recollections vary, but one thing was certain, we left Italy two hours late.
How passengers felt about this depended on their plans. Returning French holidaymakers gleefully made for the restaurant carriage for a long lunch as the Côte d'Azur unspooled. On a five-stage journey to Devon and about to miss parts two, three and four, I appreciated the views (the red cliffs around St Raphaël were particularly ravishing) but was most struck by the nonstop tunnels that stymied my increasingly desperate calls to my travel insurance company.
Here is where cross-border travel is less fun — despite its staff having caused the delay, SNCF wouldn't reroute me because this was an Italian train. The upshot: about £750 on new trains, a hotel and a 6am taxi to make my ferry.
Pretty hellish, sure, yet nothing can demote this train from railway heaven: real beds, a restaurant carriage, snapshots of summer at every stop, names that shiver with glamour — Cinque Terre, Monte Carlo, Nice, Menton. I've never been on a super-lux sleeper (I'd rather pay my mortgage than ride the Orient Express), but this is as glamorous as anyone needs a train to be.Julia Buckley was a guest of FS Treni Turistici Italiani, which has shared couchettes from £62 (fstrenituristici.it). The Espresso Riviera runs until August 30. Fly to Rome
By Siobhan Grogan
Le Train Rouge clatters along 100-year-old tracks over gravity-defying suspension bridges, through tunnels and across flower-filled French Pyrenean meadows on its 35-mile journey from Rivesaltes to the small town of Axat. This journey is one of the day trips in this weeklong break to Catalonia, travelling by rail from London and staying in the Costa Brava resort of Roses. Rail fans will also revel in the day on the Nuria Rack Railway, which travels eight miles to the Nuria Valley, where mountain pastures surround a blue-green lake. Visits to Girona and Figueres, for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, provide a culture fix.Details Seven nights' half-board from £1,299pp, including all rail and coach travel, excursions and wine with dinner (greatrail.com)
Reach the French Alpine resort of Chambéry before gunning through the mountains to charming Turin, where sightseeing options include the old Fiat factory, which was immortalised in The Italian Job (1969) and now hosts the largest rooftop garden in Europe. A snaking run to the Adriatic deposits travellers in historic Bari, your base for catching a sleeper ferry to Albania, a land of eagles, hidden beaches and striking socialist architecture. The trip ends with a two-night stay in buzzy Tirana.Details Four nights' B&B and two nights' room only from £1,436pp, including all rail travel (trip.byway.travel)
Journey across wintry landscapes on the night train from Stockholm to Kiruna, the northernmost Swedish city, deep inside the Arctic Circle on the banks of frozen Lake Luossajarvi. Activities include snowshoe treks through forests, dog sledding, ice fishing and riding a snowmobile across the tundra, while keeping an eye on the sky for the northern lights. You have three days for Arctic adventures after travelling by train from London via the German city of Münster and Copenhagen, plus two days in Stockholm. Summertime adventures on the same tour take in the midnight sun. Details Eight nights' B&B from £1,149pp (tailormaderail.com). Fly from Kiruna
It's easy and rewarding to explore Slovenia, a tiny land of glacial lakes, ice-capped mountains, vineyards, meadows and a sliver of Adriatic coast, by rail. Your journey takes you from Lake Bled, through a landscape of vineyards and cherry orchards to Bohinjska Bistrica, near the Italian border, before heading south to Ljubljana. After two nights exploring the markets, intriguing streets and riverside cafés of the leafy capital, you're off to the improbably picturesque coastal city of Piran, with its Venetian façades, pretty squares and seafood restaurants. Details Six nights' B&B from £1,080pp, including rail and transfers (inntravel.co.uk). Fly to Ljubljana
The graceful baroque heart of Vienna is easy to explore by bike, foot and tram. This eight-night holiday by rail gives you three nights each in the Austrian capital and dreamy Salzburg, with stops in Frankfurt and Zurich. While in Vienna check out the Hofburg Palace and the State Opera, get your art fix at the MuseumsQuartier and gorge on coffee topped with whipped cream in 19th-century cafés. In Salzburg, two hours and 20 minutes from the capital on the speedy Railjet service, there are the legacies of Mozart and the von Trapps to explore.Details Eight nights' B&B from £1,495pp, including first-class rail travel (planetrail.co.uk)