When Belgian engineer and entrepreneur Georges Nagelmackers was in the United States of America in the late 1860s, he was introduced to a revolutionary invention – the Pullman sleeping cars. Inspired by the comfort they offered American passengers, Nagelmackers decided to offer a similar concept to the European market upon his return to Europe. The result? The creation of the legendary Orient Express, owned by the International Sleeping Car Company (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, CIWL).

The first Orient Express journey began on 4^th October 1883 from the railway station in Paris to the sound of Mozart’s Turkish March. The train covered the 3,000-kilometre journey between Paris and Constantinople in just over three and a half days. The first Orient Express train consisted of a steam locomotive, a coal tender, two sleeping cars, a dining car and two baggage cars. As a result, the west and east of Europe were symbolically connected, and the train operated until the start of World War II.

The opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1906 introduced a new route for the Simplon-Express train, which carried passengers from London and Paris to Milan, from 1908 to Venice, and from 1912 to Trieste. After World War I, another variant appeared – the Simplon-Orient-Express, also named after the longest railway tunnel in the world at the time. Unlike other trains, the Simplon-Orient-Express allowed passengers to continue their journey further east from Constantinople. Passengers could continue their journey to Ankara, Aleppo, Baghdad, Cairo, and even to India once a week.

The golden age of trains and the rise of Abbazia

The last quarter of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century mark the golden age of luxury trains, including the Orient Express and its incarnations. But it was also the period of the heyday of Abbazia (Opatija) – the cradle of tourism on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Known as the “Austrian Nice”, Abbazia had been attracting the aristocracy of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy since the mid-19th century.

The Imperial and Royal Privileged Southern Railways Company played a key role in the development of the town, which in 1882 bought Villa Angiolina – a symbol of the beginning of Opatija’s resort tourism. Major investments soon followed: the construction of the Quarnero (1884) and Stephanie (1885) hotels, which made Abbazia a recognised climatic health resort and fashionable destination.

The railway as a link between tourism and luxury

The connection between the Southern Railways Company, the International Sleeping Car Company and Abbazia lies precisely in the railway. In 1890, an agreement was signed that positioned Abbazia as a potential destination for passengers of luxury trains. Although the trains owned by the International Sleeping Car Company – the Orient Express, the Simplon-Express and the Simplon-Orient-Express – never officially stopped at the Abbazia-Mattuglie station (today Opatija-Matulji), the connection between the passengers of these trains and Abbazia did exist. Passengers of the Orient Express, which departed from Paris or London, travelled mainly through the Danube Valley, stopping in Vienna and Budapest, from where they could continue their journey to Rijeka by the Southern Railway. With the opening of the Simplon Tunnel and the introduction of the Simplon-Express in 1906, a new route was opened to Milan, from 1908 to Venice, and from 1912 to Trieste, from where passengers most often came to Opatija by boat. After the end of World War I, in 1919, the Simplon-Orient-Express, the third train owned by the company, also passed through Croatian regions, stopping in Zagreb, Slavonski Brod and Vinkovci, allowing passengers to continue their journey by rail to Rijeka, and then by boat or other means of transport to Opatija.

From 1895, passengers could buy tickets for the shorter journey to Abbazia. At the beginning of the 20th century, the night train of the International Sleeping Car Company departed from Vienna at 8:25 pm and arrived in Matulji at around 9 am the next morning. The collaboration between the two companies reached its peak in 1898 with the signing of a contract, which today we would call a concession, by which the International Sleeping Car Company leased accommodation facilities in Abbazia for 25 years, for an annual fee of 320,000 kronen. According to the press of the time, it is also known that at a railway conference in 1906, there was a discussion about adding another sleeping car to the express train from Paris that would run via Venice and St. Peter (Pivka) towards Rijeka and Abbazia. This was the connecting line of the Simplon-Express, which had been operating since July 1906. The importance of Abbazia to the International Sleeping Car Company is confirmed by the fact that it had its own office in the Hotel Stephanie, managed by director Luciano Croci. All of the above confirms that Abbazia was one of the favourite destinations for passengers on luxury trains owned by the International Sleeping Car Company. (Matea Plišić)