France is having a sleeper-train moment, and the price tags are following. At the budget end, an overnight Intercités berth costs less than a dinner for two. At the other end, a single night in a restored 1920s carriage can cost more than a week at a good beach hotel. The question we keep being asked is where the middle sits, and whether spending several thousand pounds on a night in a moving hotel is romance or folly.
We have used £5,700 as the yardstick for this piece, and it is worth being clear about how. We could not trace that exact figure to a single fare, so we have treated it as a budget and asked what it covers in two readings: £5,700 per person, and £5,700 for a couple. The answers are quite different.
The short version is this. The most talked-about French luxury train of the past few years, Le Grand Tour from Puy du Fou, is not carrying passengers yet and now looks unlikely to before 2028. The start-up that promised a hotel on rails, Midnight Trains, folded in 2024 before it ran a single service. What you can book is Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, which leaves Paris on a string of routes and, from May 2027, adds an overnight run to Monaco along the Riviera. That is where £5,700 gets interesting.
Prices below come from Belmond’s own listings, trade coverage and specialist agents, and several are in euros, so the sterling cost will move with the exchange rate. Check current fares before you commit.
The French luxury trains you cannot book
Le Grand Tour is the big one. Conceived by the team behind the Puy du Fou theme park in the Vendée, it was announced as a six-day, 4,000-kilometre Belle Époque journey from Paris through Champagne, Burgundy, Avignon, Arcachon and the Loire before ending at the park. Launch dates have slipped repeatedly, from 2023 to 2025 and then to 2026. Some specialist agents listed 2026 departures and even marked them sold out, and a price of around €4,900 a person was widely quoted earlier. But at the park’s annual press event on 21 October 2026, Puy du Fou showed the first images of the interior and said the train, which will carry 44 passengers, is still being built in northern France and will go through several months of testing. French trade press concluded that service before 2028 looks unlikely. Treat any listed fare as provisional until a date is confirmed.
Midnight Trains is the other cautionary tale. It was a French start-up that planned new-build sleepers with private rooms and a restaurant, aimed at routes from Paris to cities such as Milan, Venice and Barcelona. After a funding round failed to raise the €5 million it needed to lease rolling stock, it abandoned the project at the end of May 2024.
At the other end of the scale, the state-run Intercités de Nuit sleepers still run from Paris to places such as Nice, Toulouse and Briançon. They are good value, with fares that can fall below €100 for a berth, but they are working trains rather than hotels on rails, and the Paris to Berlin and Vienna services were withdrawn in December 2025 when state funding for them stopped. If you came for the dining car and the piano, this is not that.
The cabins: what the money actually puts you in
This is where the headline figure matters, because the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express sells very different rooms under one name.
The entry point is the Historic Cabin. It is designed for two and turns into bunk beds at night, with a washbasin in the cabin. There is no private toilet or shower, as the toilets are at the end of the carriage. For many people that is part of the period charm. For others it will be a surprise at this price.
The Suites change the experience. They have double or twin beds, a seating area and a private marble bathroom with shower and toilet. Above them are the Grand Suites, six of them, each named after a city on the classic routes (Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Vienna, Prague and Budapest), with a separate sleeping area and living room. There is also L’Observatoire, a private carriage designed by the artist JR, though no price has been published for it on the new Monaco route.
On the one-night Paris to Monaco journey that starts on 10 May 2027, Belmond lists fares from €4,870 a person, based on two sharing a Historic Cabin. On the 2026 one-night runs to Venice, Florence and Verona, specialist agents list Historic Twin cabins from about £3,885 a person, Suites from about £8,785 and Grand Suites from about £12,300, with a few routes priced somewhat higher.
Put those against the yardstick. At £5,700 a person, you are comfortably above the entry fare for a Historic Cabin on the Monaco route, so the budget stretches to the train, a pre-journey hotel night in Paris and a day or two on the coast afterwards. You are well below the Suite price, so a private bathroom is out of reach. At £5,700 for a couple, which is £2,850 each, the Orient Express is out of reach entirely.
Meals, service and what is included
The fare is closer to a hotel rate than a ticket, and it buys more than a bed. Belmond says the Monaco price includes the overnight journey, 24-hour steward service, meals with the sommelier’s selected pairings, unlimited soft drinks and transfers. Reported details of the dining are a four-course dinner and a French breakfast, served in the train’s two historic dining cars, Étoile du Nord and L’Oriental.
After dinner, the evening moves to Bar Car 3674, which has a piano and stays open as long as guests remain. It is the social heart of the train, and the reason people describe the experience as theatre as much as travel.
The rules are part of the performance. Formal dress is expected for dinner, and jeans are not permitted at any time. Phones and devices are meant to stay in your compartment, partly because Wi-Fi can be unreliable in rural areas. Cocktails and some other drinks may cost extra, so ask your agent for a precise list of inclusions.
The journey itself is short and unhurried. The Monaco service is reported to leave Paris at about 3pm and reach Monaco around 10.35am the next day, roughly 19 and a half hours in all, travelling along the Mediterranean coast through Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Nice. The route is planned as an annual fixture that then continues towards Venice, so Monaco will also be a stop on a longer journey.
What the figure does not include is the rest of the trip. Flights or Eurostar to Paris, a hotel night either side and the cost of staying on the Riviera are all extra, and Monaco is not cheap.
How £5,700 compares
Here is the same budget measured against the realistic alternatives. All figures are per person unless stated and come from the sources named above, so check before booking.
- Intercités de Nuit, Paris to Nice or Toulouse: well under €200 for a berth in most cases. Omio ranked Paris to Nice the best-value sleeper in Europe in 2023, with fares from €19. It gets you there, and not much more.
- European Sleeper, Paris to Berlin: from about €40 for a seat and roughly €80 to €150 for cabin options, according to launch coverage in spring 2026. It is a different country and a different mood, but it shows how far the budget end has moved.
- Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Paris to Monaco (from May 2027): from €4,870 in a Historic Cabin.
- Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, 2026 one-night routes: from about £3,885 for a Historic Twin and about £8,785 for a Suite.
- Paris to the Amalfi Coast: from £8,600 for a four-day journey that includes a hotel stay on the coast. Paris to Portofino with a hotel stay in October 2026 was listed from £9,500.
- Le Grand Tour: around €4,900 was quoted, but no confirmed departures.
The pattern is clear. Between about €200 and about €4,000 there is almost nothing, because the market splits into working night trains and heritage experiences. £5,700 sits just above the cheapest ticket onto the heritage side. It is enough to board, and not enough to be comfortable in the way the brochures show.
One practical point on value: the Monaco fare includes dinner, breakfast, service and transfers, which a hotel bill would not. If you price a Riviera night in a good hotel with dinner and breakfast, the gap closes, though the train will still cost more.
Who it suits, and who should save the money
It suits people who treat the journey as the destination. If you are marking an anniversary, planning a proposal or travelling with a parent who remembers the golden age of rail, a night on this train is a considered gift. It rewards people who enjoy dressing up, like conversation with strangers over dinner and are comfortable with a degree of theatre.
It suits people who can accept the Historic Cabin as it is. Bunk beds, a shared corridor toilet and carriages built in the 1920s are the point, not a flaw. If you want a private bathroom, you need to budget for a Suite, and that changes the maths completely.
It is less suited to anyone who wants to arrive rested and ready for a full day. A single night on a moving train is lively and short, and sleep varies with the track.
It does not suit light packers who dislike rules, or anyone who wants to use a laptop at the table. It is not a good fit for people with limited mobility either, as the carriages are historic and narrow, so ask Belmond about access before booking.
And it is not for anyone who expects the lowest price per night of sleep. A hotel will always win on that measure. The train is a purchase of atmosphere.
The verdict
So is it worth it? Our answer depends on which £5,700 you mean.
If it is £5,700 each, yes, with conditions. It buys a night on the Paris to Monaco run in a Historic Cabin with room left over for a hotel night in Paris and a day on the coast, and the price includes dinner, breakfast and service. Book it for the occasion, not for the sleep. If you want your own bathroom, aim for a Suite and accept that this means doubling the budget.
If it is £5,700 for two, no. At that level the Orient Express is out of reach, and the better use of the money is a daytime high-speed train to the Riviera, a good hotel and a sleeper on the way home, such as the Paris to Nice Intercités, as a straightforward and inexpensive experience.
The honest caveat is that the French luxury sleeper most people are waiting for does not exist yet. Le Grand Tour may well become the answer to this question in a couple of years, with a cabin, a chef and a theatrical itinerary all in French hands. Until Puy du Fou confirms real departures and real prices, the Orient Express is the one you can book.
If you do, book early. Specialist agents report that popular dates sell out months ahead, and the Monaco debut will be a draw. Confirm the fare, the cabin type and exactly what is included in writing, and ask about the cancellation terms before you pay a deposit.
