Back in the days when Julian was working at an international bank in the city of London, but not earning big bucks, he decided to give me a special Valentine’s present – a trip on the Orient Express from London to Paris, with 3 nights in Paris before returning to London via the normal trains and ferry. He paid an all-inclusive price for the travel both ways and the hotel.

The trip itself was in April, a couple of months after Valentine’s Day, so the weather was pleasant. We travelled to London from West Malling by train which, luckily, goes to Victoria Station where we were to embark on the grand Orient Express train. Each car of the fabled train had a name; we were in Cygnus. Our stewards for the journey were Gus and Cyril. One of them showed us to our seats which were either side of a table for two. We set off towards Folkestone and shortly were presented with menus for the luncheon.

As we ate, the train ambled through the Kent countryside, arriving at Folkestone in the mid afternoon. We embarked onto the ferry which was named Horsa and went to the lounge which had been set aside for travellers on the Orient Express, where we enjoyed a coffee.

The ferry was a little late getting to Boulogne because of fog in the channel, but the continental Orient Express train was waiting for us, of course. We were shown to our seats in car R1 (I’m looking at the notes I made in 1987 and that’s what it says.) and from there we went into the Piano Bar where there was, indeed, a piano, being played by a gentleman who knew what he was doing!

After drinks and nibbles, we returned to our seats in R1 where we were served a wonderful six course dinner. (See MENU below, not the Carte) I imagine we also had a glass or two of chilled white wine. (See Vins Blancs, below.)

I don’t know how we managed to eat all that and then stand up and move when we arrived in Paris, but we alighted from the train about 9:30 pm and made our way, by Metro, to the hotel.

Now comes the weirdest part of this story which I assure you is all true!

Our hotel was called L’Hotel d’Anvers. We went to Anvers metro station and as we reached the top of the stairway leading out of the station, there, to our left was the Anvers Hotel. We went straight in and to the booking desk. There was a youngish woman sitting behind the desk and I, in my best French, explained that we had a room for 2 booked for three nights in the name of Lovegrove. We were shown to Room 4 on the next floor which was well appointed with an en suite.

If you know Paris you might already know that Anvers is at the bottom of the hill which has Le Sacré Cœur on top and that it is reached by a seemingly endless flight of steps. Well, despite having got up early to start our journey, we were excited to be in Paris so went out to wander around. We climbed to Le Sacré Cœur and wandered around Montmartre where we saw many people enjoying its night life. Eventually we went back to the hotel and to bed. Julian slept like a log, as always, but I slept badly as there was an awful lot of noise on the main road outside.

The next morning we got up around half past eight and spent the day sight-seeing. We went to Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, and walked up the Champs Élysées from La Place de la Concorde to l’Arc de Triomphe. Tired out, we went back to the hotel for a rest. As we entered the hotel, the old lady who was sitting behind the reception desk stopped us and asked when we were going to pay! I told her that we had already paid when we booked the holiday. Then she told me that the hotel doesn’t have that kind of arrangement with any holiday agents! We showed her our paperwork, then she told us that we were IN THE WRONG HOTEL!

We had assumed that the Anvers Hotel was the same as L’Hotel d’Anvers, which, she told us, was down the road and around the corner. We were feeling a little down realising that we were going to have to pay for the night we had spent there as well as having paid already for the other hotel but it was do-able, thankfully. We walked down the road and around the corner to the right hotel. They had given our room to someone else as we hadn’t turned up!

Now we realised that we were going to have to pay for three nights at the ‘wrong’ hotel, so we were going to have to be even more careful with the money we had brought with us. Luckily, the ‘wrong’ hotel was able to give us our room for that night and the following one, so that was one problem we weren’t faced with.

That evening we went up to Montmartre and had dinner in the Consulat restaurant and came out feeling wonderfully full and far less miserable about our hotel mistake.

The next morning we got up and walked to the Gare de Nord to find out about the times of trains for the next day, then took the metro to l’Odéon, saw the bouquinistes (the stalls of books along the banks of the Seine) then went to a Matisse exhibition. On our way back to the hotel we bought wine and cheese to take home with us, then – after a little rest at the hotel – we went to a brasserie in the Rue de Maubeuge and had wonderful food. (A plate of saucissons et jambon, fish and rice, a creme caramel, coffee and wine for me and avocado with shrimps, veal escalope and rice, cheese, chocolate mousse, coffee and wine, for Julian).

The next morning we said au revoir to Paris and went back to West Malling via ordinary trains and a ferry. We arrived at home about 3 in the afternoon, both ready to go back to work and to tell our family and friends all about our trip on the Orient Express.