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Product Description Everyone has a dream of what the ultimate trip, or adventure, will be and ours was a trip on the Venice Simplon-ORIENT EXPRESS (to give the train its full name). We talked about it for years and planned to reward ourself with one as our retirement gift to each other. Since it was to be the trip of a lifetime Joyce and I flew first-class to London and booked into the Dorchester hotel for four days then boarded the British section of the train at Victoria Station. We arrived at Flokestone shortly after noon and crossed the Channel on a luxury catamaran drinking champagne. The European section of the train with its splendid blue and gold wagon-lits carriages was waiting for us at Boulogne, France. Dinner was served in the Restaurant Car as the train sped past Paris and what a dinner it was. Following drinks in the Bar Car and listening to Broadway show tunes played on a grand piano we returned to our cabin. Waking up and looking out the windiw at the Swiss Alps was something almost too breathtaking to describe. From there it was through Switzerland and on to Innsbruck Austria where the train turned south through Italy until we arrived, in the pouring rain, at Venice's Santa Lucia Railway Station shortly after six. We spent two days in a magnificant suite overlooking the Grand Canal before we re-boarded the Orient Express. This time we went as far as Basel, Switzerland,where the train split into two sections. One section returned to France and the other section that we were on swung north and followed the Rhine Riverup to Dusseldorf, Germany. We flew back to London for five more days in the Dorchester. The experiences Joyce and I had on that magical trip provided me with the factual research necessary to write "Murder &The Minden Star." Review Some old things never lose their fascination. Like Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express novel published in 1934. Forty years later, t