A Nostalgic Rail Journey through Italy Aboard Gio Ponti’s Arlecchino Train
Fondazione FS
This story is part of Iconic Train Journeys, a spotlight on the world's most legendary railway adventures, from luxury trains that evoke old-world glamor to historic routes that have rebuilt nations and itineraries that reveal the hidden depths of our favorite destinations.
I am so hungover when I board the Arlecchino that its myriad charms are, at first, as lost on me as an idiom in translation. We are at Rome Termini, and this train has been chartered to whisk us—several dozen strangers and me—to Perugia in celebration of that city’s grande dame, the legendary Sina Brufani hotel, and its 140th birthday. Already a casualty of the festivities on account of too many Negronis the previous night, I find myself a seat upholstered in emerald green velvet, sink into it with my sunglasses on, and let my head rest against the window. We pull out of the station, and for an hour or so, I pass in and out of bleary, slightly nauseous sleep.
When my eyes open, happy green fields outside Poggio Mirteto—awakened like me from winter’s sleep—are shooting past the window. I’ve lost my sunglasses, which have fallen off and have likely nestled themselves into some crevice between seats. As I look around for them, I see that every seat in my car is done in the same rich fabric, a crisp white cover stretched over each headrest. This, I will learn, is the green car—one of four cars total, each with a color of its own. The green car is the last, and in its rear is a viewing gallery lined with spinning chairs from which you can watch the countryside frame the tracks and, if you’re a child or childlike, spin around in circles.
Legend of midcentury architecture Gio Ponti designed the Arlecchino (which translates to “Harlequin”) during Italy’s postwar boom—it was inaugurated in 1960 as part of that year’s Olympics in Rome. Thousands of suited and well-tailored riders rode the Arlecchino, at first on the route between Milan, Rome, and Naples before it became a mainstay on Center-Northern itineraries between Milan, Trieste, Venice, Bologna, and Florence. When the service was retired in 1986, the beautiful cars were left to rust in a warehouse.
Then, in 2015, the FS Foundation (born from original commissioner FS Company) rescued the train and embarked on a meticulous restoration that balanced a return to the original design with the introduction of the necessary technology to operate on the electric tracks that Italy runs on today.
The greatest feat of Arlecchino’s design, then and now, is its front viewing cabin, which we make our way to after stopping in wonderful car after wonderful car along the way. Ahead of the green car first is a huddle of gray lavatories that offer little excitement beyond drainage holes bored straight through the floor so that you can watch the tracks directly below zoom, zoom, zoom past—it’s possible, though only barely, that I still had my sunglasses at this point and dropped them clean through. Then comes the red car, now a snack bar with a fabulous vintage Faema espresso machine and a standing counter. I order an espresso, take it like a shot, order another, and sip that at the counter while staring dazedly out the window.
Sufficiently caffeinated, I trudge forward. The seats return in the gold car—I am delighted peering through the window, it somehow not occurring to me in my self-absorbed stupor that there might be more people and therefore more seats on this train and that those seats would be any color other than my native green. The gold is buoyant, as much so as the groups of travel agents making merry within. I don’t spend much time with them, walking onward to the blue car. The blue car is royal and sumptuous, and familiar faces from Rome convene here. Again, I slip past with just a nod.
It is only at this point that I understand I have reached the front of the train, because its future is barreling at me head-on. The front car is the near-identical twin of the rear viewing gallery, which allowed me to wave goodbye to all that we were leaving behind, the only difference here being the train’s streamlined tip slicing through the air and devouring all in its path. I take a swivel seat but do not spin in circles. I imagine, instead, that I’m in the conductor’s chair, that I am the conductor, that I don’t want to lose my feeble breakfast all over the clean glass. Happily, I manage to keep it all in. I am invigorated.
Arlecchino Train
But—you might ask—if you’re at the front of the train, then who’s conducting it? Here lies the design element that placed the Arlecchino on the cutting edge during its time and ensures it remains there even today. The conductor’s cabin is just above, accessed via a tiny staircase, like a watchtower or a tree house. I stay up front watching the world come at me for as long as I politely can without being a total hog, watching contentedly as though I’ve bought a ticket to the world’s most riveting movie. I don’t stop smiling, not even when we disembark in Perugia. What a way to see where you’re going.
How to book
While the Arlecchino can be chartered year-round by those willing to pay the (nebulous) fee, the Lombardy region rents it out twice a year for trips that are open to the public—the next of these travels from Milan to Genoa on November 3, 2024. Tickets go on sale a month or so in advance on the FS website, are priced at approximately $42, and will be gone in an instant. See our list of the best hotels in Milan here.
The Arlecchino is just one of several vintage trains in Italy being restored to their former glory and returned to service by FS; all of those itineraries can be viewed here.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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