In the Tracks of the Orient Express

The Orient Express once departed from the Gare de l’Est. No sleeping cars or wood panelling for us, but the same starting point and the same desire: to reach the East without ever leaving the ground.

A first stop in Switzerland, along the impossibly clear waters of the Limmat. The towers of the Grossmünster watch over a calm city, almost too orderly for travellers bound for the East. In the Fraumünster, Chagall’s stained-glass windows bathe the nave in blue and green light.

One night train later, beyond the Alps, Ljubljana and its bronze dragons, guardians of the bridge that bears their name. The city has the gentleness of human-scale capitals, at the gates of the Balkans. In St Nicholas Cathedral the organist rehearses beneath painted ceilings; at night the Franciscan church is mirrored in the Ljubljanica, at the foot of the Triple Bridge.

A few hours by train to Zagreb, far from the crowds of the Croatian coast. In the upper town, the roof of St Mark’s Church bears the coats of arms of the kingdom and the city in glazed tiles; below, the cathedral spires rise above the rooftops. In the afternoon, in the botanical garden, bumblebees work the echinacea in the July heat.

Sarajevo, where the East already begins: minarets beneath the hills, the Turkish-delight windows of Baščaršija, the Vijećnica under a stormy sky. By the Latin Bridge, in 1914, a pistol shot tipped the century over. The city still bears the scars of the siege, shrapnel-pocked façades and memorials to the besieged; on Mount Trebević, the bobsleigh track of the 1984 Games coils through the forest, covered in graffiti.

A day passing through Belgrade, on the way to Sofia, where the Sava flows into the Danube beneath the Kalemegdan fortress. From the ramparts the eye wanders far across the plain. In town, the Orthodox churches unfold painted vaults and gilded iconostases: we have entered the Serbian world.

Sofia, in the shadow of the golden domes of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. In the Archaeological Museum, the treasure of the Thracians: the bronze head of King Seuthes III, a gold mask with closed eyelids. The city layers its eras, from the Rotunda of St George and its medieval frescoes to the synagogue and its giant chandelier, and on to the former Party House, lit up at night.

The train takes us from Sofia to Istanbul, the historic terminus of the Orient Express. From the Süleymaniye, the Golden Horn and Galata spread out at our feet; in Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine mosaics of Christ and the Virgin still keep watch beneath the immense dome. At dusk, Istanbul unfolds its domes and minarets above the water, and from the bazaars to the fishermen on the Galata Bridge, the city overflows with life.

Over the following days we explore Istanbul layer by layer. The Iznik tiles of the Topkapı harem and the Baghdad Kiosk; underground, the Basilica Cistern and its forest of columns reflected in the water; in the Archaeological Museum, the Alexander Sarcophagus. We walk along the Theodosian Walls, lose ourselves in the Spice Bazaar, and find beneath the tiles of Rüstem Pasha a silence at odds with the din of the harbour.

The journey continues into the heart of Anatolia. In Cappadocia, fairy chimneys, the rock-cut churches of Göreme and underground cities carved into the tuff make up a landscape from another planet. At sunset the Uçhisar cliff catches fire above Pigeon Valley; at dawn dozens of balloons rise above the valleys.

Further south-west, the Ihlara Valley is a green rift where the Melendiz flows between cliffs riddled with Byzantine churches. In the cool of the chapels, apostles and archangels have been looking down for nearly a thousand years. In the evening, back in Göreme, the sun sets over the fairy chimneys, Mount Erciyes on the horizon.

Konya, the city of Rumi. In the evening, the Sema ceremony: a dervish kneels in a pool of light, waiting, then the white robes begin to turn, slowly, until they dissolve into motion. The next day crowds file silently past the poet’s mausoleum beneath the painted domes of the Mevlana Museum; in the Karatay Madrasa, a Seljuk dome of turquoise tiles mimics the starry sky.

A long detour over the Taurus Mountains to the Mediterranean. In Antalya, the old town of Kaleiçi tumbles in alleys down to its ancient harbour, and you still enter the city through Hadrian’s Gate. Below the cliffs the sea is an almost unreal turquoise: two days’ respite before heading east again.

In the wooded hills of ancient Cilicia, the Neo-Hittite citadel of Karatepe keeps its carved gateways among the pines: storm god, winged sun disc, hunting and banquet scenes. It was here that a long bilingual inscription, in Phoenician and Luwian hieroglyphs, made it possible to decipher the latter. Under the trees a craftsman works on, indifferent to the centuries.

Antakya, ancient Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians. In the Hatay Museum, the Roman mosaics are among the finest in the world, including a reclining skeleton urging us to enjoy life. In the old town, the Orthodox church of St Peter and St Paul, alleys shaded by umbrellas, the cave church of St Peter on the mountainside. Seven months later, the earthquake of February 2023 would destroy much of it.

Gaziantep, an old caravan crossroads. In the Zeugma Museum, mosaics rescued from the Euphrates before a dam flooded the valley, and the haunting gaze of the “Gypsy Girl”, now the city’s emblem. In the artisans’ bazaars, coppersmiths, shoemakers, merchants of spices and dried peppers: here the East has a bolder taste.

Diyarbakır, the city of black basalt, heart of Turkish Kurdistan. In the courtyard of the Great Mosque, reused ancient columns; in the shade, people rest out of the crushing July heat. At sunset the Ten-Eyed Bridge spans the Tigris, as it has for nearly a thousand years.

On the summit of Mount Nemrut, more than 2,000 metres up, the colossal heads of King Antiochus and his gods have gazed at the horizon for two thousand years. We wait there for sunset and sunrise, when the stone catches fire. On the way down, Arsameia and its relief of King Mithridates shaking hands with Heracles, then the Roman bridge of Cendere, thrown across the river under Septimius Severus.

Şanlıurfa, the city of prophets, where tradition places the birth of Abraham. In the museum, the Urfa Man, the oldest known life-size human statue, carved some eleven thousand years ago. At Göbekli Tepe, T-shaped pillars carved with foxes, boars and snakes were raised millennia before Stonehenge: the oldest known sanctuary. In town, around the Pool of Abraham, sacred carp swim beneath the arcades of the mosques.

Mardin, clinging to its hill, overlooks the Mesopotamian plain stretching away towards Syria. Stepped alleys, honey-coloured stone, the minaret of the Great Mosque lit up at night. Close to the border, the Byzantine city of Dara hides a vast cistern and a rock-cut necropolis; on the way back, the Syriac monastery of Deyrulzafaran, one of the oldest still inhabited. The last Turkish stop before Iraq.

We enter Iraqi Kurdistan. In Erbil the citadel, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, towers over bazaars where old men tell their prayer beads. Not far away, the Syriac monastery of Mar Mattai clings to the mountain above the Nineveh plain.

Markets overflowing with fruit, fish and watermelons, old Kurds in traditional dress: life is intense and warm. Yet recent history is never far. At Amna Suraka, a former Baathist security prison turned museum, the hulks of tanks and bombs fill the courtyard, and a hall lined with 182,000 shards of mirror honours the victims of the Anfal campaign.

Heading north, the road plunges into the mountains. The Rawanduz canyon, a dizzying gash in the limestone, catches fire at sunset. The next day, above the valley of the Great Zab, Shanidar Cave, where Neanderthals buried tens of thousands of years ago were unearthed: from its shade we look out over the same valley they did.

Further north, Amadiya sits on a rocky plateau, like an island above the valleys. Its houses cling to the cliff edge, and at night the moon rises over the mountains of the Turkish border. In the village, children face off in a kickboxing ring; in the morning we climb down to the ruins of the Qubahan madrasa, tucked against the rock face.

In the hills around Duhok, signs warning of landmines stand beside flocks of sheep, and camps for displaced people recall the fate of the Yazidis. At the Mosul Dam lake, the 2022 drought lowered the water so far that ancient ruins emerged. In the evening the sun sets over a cracked shore where shepherds pass by.

At Khinis, Sennacherib’s Assyrian reliefs are carved straight into the cliff, above the canal that once fed Nineveh. Then Lalish, the holiest Yazidi sanctuary: you enter barefoot, among blackened oil jars, knots of coloured silk and the fluted spires of Sheikh Adi’s tomb; nearby, the monastery of Rabban Hormizd clings to the mountain above Alqosh. On the last day, Akre and its houses stacked against the mountain, in golden light: a journey’s end close to the sacred.