The Orient Express departs Paris for the first time.

The very first Orient Express passengers reached Constantinople not by rail alone, but by ferry.
On 4 June 1883, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits launched the Express d'Orient from the Gare de Strasbourg (now Gare de l'Est) in Paris. The brainchild of Belgian engineer Georges Nagelmackers, the service ran to Giurgiu in Romania, with passengers completing the final leg to Constantinople by ferry and connecting train. It was the first transcontinental luxury rail service in Europe. Vienna was a natural stop on the route, the train passing through the Habsburg capital as it threaded its way eastward across the continent. From the outset, the service offered sleeping cars, a restaurant car, and a level of comfort that simply did not exist on European railways.



























