It’s one of Europe’s most attractive nations, with a rich cultural history that includes world-famous towns, breathtaking landscapes, and a world-class train system. Italy is already a dream vacation, but there are plans in the works to make the train experience, even more, dreamier, with a “Treno della Dolce Vita.”
The “Dolce Vita train” will travel ten routes across Italy’s most famous landscapes in antique trains outfitted with retro elegance and Dolce Vita-era furnishings. The routes will travel across 14 of Italy’s 20 regions, stopping in 128 cities and traversing 10,000 miles of track from north to south. The length of the trip will vary from one to three nights.
Passengers will be able to travel through Tuscany’s renowned hills and across Sicily on luxury trains that pay homage to Federico Fellini’s 1960s film of the same name. They will sleep, eat, and be entertained aboard, in the spirit of classic services such as Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
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The trains are set to debut in 2023, but a trial run from Rome to Civitavecchia, on the coast of Lazio, was held in a vintage train specially outfitted for the occasion.
According to CNN, Carlo Cracco, a celebrity chef, catered the voyage, offering visitors a taste of what they may expect.
The Treno Dolce Vita is a collaboration between Trenitalia and Ferrovie dello Stato, Italy’s national railway operator, and Arsenale S.p.A., a premium hospitality firm that is behind upcoming luxury hotels such as the Soho House in Rome and the Rosewood in Venice.
The project’s spokesperson described it as “a new frontier in luxury hospitality,” saying that the trains will service all of Italy’s top attractions, including the sea, hills, lakes, mountains, medieval villages, and culinary sites, CNN reported.
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After the pandemic, the initiative intends to leverage people’s desire to travel to less-visited locations and travel more leisurely.
“Tourism does not simply mean hotels and restaurants,” Paolo Barletta, CEO of Arsenale SpA, told CNN. “Italy is a 360-degree experience, and we need to start again from that experience to make a complete offering.”
He promised that the trains will take tourists to “lesser-known places” on “new itineraries.”