Part 1: Which way round?

I’ll be setting out from London, which is conveniently enough also the home of the Greenwich Meridian, that great dividing line of East and West. There can be few more suitable departure markers for for a journey around the world. My intention is to head East, as for one thing it promises much more than the Atlantic lying to the West, which would otherwise prove an immediate obstacle in my aim to travel ‘overland’. Travel, and the process of travelling has long been a great source of inspiration, and I’m hoping to take in some of the routes that have fired the imagination, and a sense of the romantic while travelling.

As my first requirement will be to cross Europe on the way to Asia, no route seems so famously intertwined with the history of travel than that of the Orient Express. This route once took travellers from London, the heart of the British Empire, to Instanbul, and the edge of the Orient, and what must have felt at the time to be as if it were half a world away. The Orient Express would call at many of the great European capitals of the time, including Paris, Vienna, and Belgrade. Europe is largely well-trodden territory for me, and my intention is to make my journey though Western Europe a relative brief one, but the route will provide an interesting opportunity to visit destinations as yet unknown to me, such as the former Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, and Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, en route to Istanbul.

Taking one of the ultra-luxurious trains that still run on part of the Orient Express route is of course out of the question, but there is another Orient Express available to the normal traveller, as explained on Mark Smith’s excellent ‘The man in seat 61’ website. Mark explains that a normal, scheduled sleeper train continues to operate with the name Orient Express between Paris and Vienna. Taking the Eurostar to Paris, then the Orient Express to Vienna will provide the perfect start to my journey.