Inaugurated in 1883 by a French railway company, the Orient Express soon became the stuff legends are made of. Originally traveling from Paris through Munich, Vienna and Sophia to the Sirkeci station of Istanbul, passengers could continue the journey, traveling by boat across the Bosphorus to the Haydarpasa Railway Station to join the Taurus Express to Anatolia.
Although the route varied throughout the years it ran from Paris to Istanbul, a distance of 3186 kilometers.

A monument to the hedonistic days of the late 19th and early 20th century, it was the most luxurious long distance rail journey in the history of travel. Royalty, aristocracy, the rich and the famous traveled regularly on the Orient Express. Its passenger list read like a volume of "Who's Who," Gourmet chefs, chandeliers, fully equipped bathrooms, staterooms and dining rooms on par with the Ritz were all part of the train. It takes on a myth-like quality in our current times of "functional" travel.

Woven into the plot of many books, it is remembered today mainly through Agatha Christie's book (and later a film) "Murder on the Orient Express."
The Orient Express slowly declined in the 1930s