Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Monday the 17th of

April and the subject today is very simple. Has Brexit murdered the Orient Express? Let me explain.

The Orient Express began in 1883. No, I wasn't on board, thank you very much.

This was a train from Paris that rolled across Europe to a place called Georgi on the Romanian side of the Danube, just across actually from Bulgaria.

Within six years, it had extended all the way to Istanbul

and that was really the classic Orient Express line,

leaving Paris Gardellest heading through Champagne region,

Lorraine, Alsace and then crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg.

Then you would go through Munich and a whole series of European capitals, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, and Sophia on route to Istanbul, where you were put in at Serkej station, which is still there, still open.

Not welcoming so many trains these days, but there's a lovely Orient Express museum that you can explore, as well as the beautiful old ticket hall.

It's a lovely place to be if you happen to be in Turkey's largest city.

Anyway, the Orient Express suffered death by a thousand cuts.

It kept being trimmed back.

It simply wasn't a train for the modern age. And ultimately, it came to an end in 2009.

And by that stage, it was frankly pathetic. It didn't go to Istanbul anymore. That was abandoned a long time ago.

It didn't even start in Paris.

Nope, it just went from Strasbourg to Vienna and it was just really an ordinary overnight train

with an extraordinary name. But by that stage, people had been convinced that the Orient Express would roll on forever

because a company called Belmond now brought up lots of 1920s carriages, put them together

and created a luxury train, the Venice Saint-Plante Orient Express.

Now, it went to Venice, which, and don't write in, please,

I don't believe the actual Orient Express ever did.

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