QUARANTINE BLOG # 465

July 8, 2021

Next up our Luxury Train Ride list is the Orient Express, Paris To Istanbul.  The Orient Express is synonymous with luxury train travel and going along the old route, which connected Western Europe to the gateway to the Orient in style.  The trip brings back the glamour of the Golden Days of travel, the style of which is often sadly lacking on many modern journeys.  The itinerary is from Paris’ Gare de l’ Est station, and over a 10-day journey enjoy stops in Budapest, Sinaia, Bucharest, Romania, and Bulgaria before reaching Istanbul. 

On this trip, the train is the main feature, as you will spend days being pampered with superior food, plenty of champagne, and vistas from the windows as you cross the Alps, follow along the Danube, and see the ever-changing countryside Europe has to offer.

Pictured above is one of the Grande Suites.  Price for the 10 day journey is $18,000 per person, double occupancy.

The champagne bar

The Cote d’Azur restaurant car

Paris, where your 10 day adventure begins

The Alps

Venice: the Grand Canal and Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

Istanbul, the end of the line

I took the picture above in 2019 when Bonnie and I were getting ready to leave Venice for Rome.  The train had come in on a special London to Venice excursion, which allows guests to enjoy the French countryside, crossing the Alps and northern Italy, and experience the Orient Express.

This shorter trip, quoting now from the company’s web page is in the “original 1920s and 30s carriages painstakingly restored with exquisite marquetery panels and designs by Art Deco artists; elegance and splendor: no wonder the allure of this luxury train is so hard to resist. This very special rail journey – operating between March and November – lets you experience the very best of glamorous Europe, from the matchless tradition of London to the waterways of Venice.”

The trip begins on Belmond’s British Pullman, rolls through the Eurotunnel, and then transfer by chauffeured limousine to the Orient Express.  This shorter trip is $4700 per person, double occupancy.

All aboard!

👉  Today’s puns (I was going to say a day without a pun is like a fish without a bicycle, but the fish simile has been used).

• A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months. 

• When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A. 

• I got some batteries that were given out free of charge. 

• A dentist and a manicurist married  They fought tooth and nail. 

• A will is a dead giveaway. 

👉  One of the books I am currently reading is The Body: A Guide for Occupants, by Bill Bryson (I am also reading The Return by William Shatner, Willful Behavior by Donna Leon, and The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough; and I am listening to two audiobooks, another Bryson and another Leon – depending on whether I am in the car alone or with the Bride of My Youth).  In the chapter “Food, Glorious Food,” Bryson writes:

Over a lifetime, we eat about sixty tons of food, which is the equivalent to eating sixty small cars.  In 1915, the average American spent half his weekly income on food.  Today it’s just 6 percent.  We live in a paradoxical situation.  For centuries, people ate unhealthily out of economic necessity.  Now we do it out of choice.  We are in the historically extraordinary position that far more people on Earth suffer from obesity than from hunger.  To be fair, it doesn’t take much to put on weight.  One chocolate chip cookie a week, in the absence of any offsetting extra exercise, will translate into about two pounds of extra weight a year [emphasis mine].

I just thought you should know.  And you are welcome!

👉  A movie misquote before we close.  For many Star Wars fans, Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back, is their favorite, and one of the oft quoted lines is from Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker, “Luke, I am your father.”

The thing is, this is not the quote you are looking for.  Believe it or not, this is a misquote.  Darth Vader never actually says “Luke, I am your father.”  One of the most famous pop culture quotes of all time must be the result of a mass Jedi mind trick.  Vader hacks off Luke’s hand, then drops a Force bomb: “I am your father.”  He doesn’t say “Luke” beforehand, though.  

👉  Today’s close continues from Psalm 119 in Praying with the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“I run the way of your commandments, for you enlarge my understanding” (Psalm 119:32).

God’s commandments are not a tortured path to crawl along, nor a narrow trail to cling to, but a wide smooth path to run on: “In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless way” (Dylan Thomas).

Prayer: How glorious, O God, to find that your commands do not oppress or restrict or cramp but free me in a life of lightness and openness in Christ, in whose name I give thanks.  Amen.

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