| |  | |  | |  | Welcome on board Midnight Trains, a company where every moment counts Here at Midnight Trains, we’re aiming to better connect the great European cities – with ‘hotels on rails’ that freshen up the good old-fashioned sleeper train. But while we wait to really welcome you on board, every Friday at midnight the Midnight Weekly newsletter will explain just how the night train could change your life. We’ll also be providing some travel inspiration, and this week we’ll be whisking you off to that most beautiful (and improbable) of European cities: Venice. | |  |  | Who would have been able to imagine Venice, if it didn’t already exist? This floating city feels like an inherent impossibility, and even more so given the challenges it faces in the shape of climate change and rising sea levels. So many pessimistic souls have predicted its disappearance, given its constantly shifting surroundings. And yet Venice lives on, despite all those many difficulties. That’s something Venice has in common with the early railway lines. Both were built against all odds, and both endured against all odds. So before Midnight Weekly heads off for a short trip to La Serenissima, we thought you’d tell you a little story that chimes with both themes: the railways and the sea. The nineteenth century had just come to a close and the train sector was really taking off. So much so that many entrepreneurial types were dreaming up ideas that no one would’ve thought were probable. Perhaps one of the most surprising examples is the train that connected Hamburg and Copenhagen by crossing (sort of) the Baltic Sea, and continued to do so until very recently. This line had two names: Fugleflugtslinjen (in Danish) ou Vogelfluglinie (en German), which both mean the ‘bird flight line’. Something to do with the technical prowess of the train drivers, perhaps? Nope – the name was chosen because the line followed the routes that many migratory birds took between Central Europe and Scandinavia. Until December 14 2019, you could experience a truly incredible journey aboard an amphibian vehicle. Leaving Hamburg in the late afternoon, you would be on a train roughly as long as an underground carriage (though quite a lot more comfortable). The kilometres would fly by, until suddenly you’d arrive at the edge of German territory, in Puttgarden, on the banks of the Baltic Sea. An announcement would ring out, informing you that the train was itself about to embark on a journey of its own. And in less time than you’d need to really get your head around the idea, the carriages would be driven into the belly of a ferry, where rail lines would allow it to rest. Passengers were then invited to leave their belongings on board, leave the carriage and make the most of an hour aboard the ship. While the train was whisked across the seas, people were able to contemplate the sunset from the upper deck, before taking their place back in the carriage once they’d arrived in Rødby in Denmark. Already the train would be rolling out onto more conventional rail tracks heading towards Copenhagen. Sounds like an April fool’s, doesn’t it? In fact the project had first emerged in 1863, thanks to German inventor Gustav Kröhnke. Just three years later, he had already received permission from the Danish government to establish a ferry terminal and a rail hub near Rødby. However, quite a few obstacles would get in the way before the initiative could see the light of day. The works were halted for a first time during the 1920s, when the rail operators considered the project to no longer be of interest to many travellers. There followed a series of stops and starts, and it wasn’t until May 14 1963 that, finally, King Frederick IX of Denmark and German president Heinrich Lübke were to inaugurate this quite unlikely route. For several decades, the train delighted hundreds of thousands of travellers, and it was for environmental reasons that it came to an end. It ran on diesel and its carbon emissions weren’t trifling. Nonetheless, there’s a new project on the way that could interest similarly minded travellers looking to cross the Baltic Sea: the Femern. The 18km-long Femern tunnel will link Germany and Denmark from 2029. By train, it’ll only take seven minutes to get from Puttgarden to Rødby, and unlike the Tunnel under the English channel, it won’t have to be dug out, because it will actually be built on the sea bed. So no, when it comes to the railways, very little is impossible: you can even find a way to get train tracks to run across the sea. And here at Midnight Trains, we may well be able to let you discover this tunnel aboard one of our trains, on a service running all the way to the Danish capital. | |  |  | All throughout September, we’re introducing you to the talents who have come together to make Midnight Trains a success. This week it’s the turn of Cyril Aouizerate, one of the four (fantastic) advisers whose role is to help our co-founders, Adrien Aumont and Romain Payet, make the right strategic choices that will allow you to climb aboard our trains from 2024. Let’s say it straight up: we’d need more than one edition of Midnight Weekly to really do justice to the unusual and storied career of Cyril Aouizerate. He was the son of a trade-unionist typographer and a shorthand typist, and he grew up in the banlieue of Ancely, just outside Toulouse. After studying public law and philosophy in Toulouse and then Jerusalem, he published several works set against the backdrop of the Second World War. Page by page, he confronted the very worst acts humans had shown themselves capable of: dehumanising and exterminating their neighbours. Cyril Aouizerate already had in mind to channel his work into the service of the greater good. At the end of the 1990s, his life took another sharp turn, as he joined Alain Taravella at the Altarea Cogedim group, where first started working on big urban projects. In fact, he was one of the key figures who made Bercy Village a reality: this was a whole new area of Paris that presaged the revival of much of the city’s 12th arrondissement. This formative experience encouraged him to go further and in 2001 he embarked on his first venture as a hotelier with Serge Trigano and Philippe Starck, before founding the Parisian outpost of Mama Shelter – a concept so successful he would late export it to Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux and Los Angeles. Now a boutique hotelier, Cyril Aouizerate didn’t want to stop there, and a few years later he was to surprise the hotel world once more. New York, December 2009: the opening of Maimonide of Brooklyn (MOB), in the neighbourhood of the same name in the Big Apple, which would contribute no end to its rapid regeneration. In MOB, Cyril Aouizerate had created a business whose hybrid approach would travel far beyond the USA. MOB was at once an affordable vegan restaurant, a culture space and a cooperative where you could buy organic products. That sort of concept may not sound so original today, but at the time, it was revolutionary. Through MOB, Cyril Aouizerate finally managed to bring together his interests and passions: entrepreneurship, social ecology, political engagement and a desire to put into practice his vision of a society generally more at ease with itself. It was in that spirit that he founded the first MOB Hotel in Saint-Ouen. Now even more are lined up to open in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Bordeaux and Florence. But at the same time, the always-unpredictable trajectory of Cyril Aouizerate continued, and so he came into contact with us here at Midnight Trains. When Adrien Aumont and Romain Payet decided they wanted to reinvent the good old-fashioned sleeper train, they wanted above all to offer travellers a unique travel experience aboard their ‘hotels on rails’. And who better placed to help them than a so-called ‘artisan hotelier’ like Cyril Aouizerate? He’d actually known Adrien for a long time, since KissKissBankBank and MOB Hotels had collaborated previously, and like many, he believed night trains offered a concrete solution when faced with the climate emergency. In his eyes, there’s no doubt about it: humankind has reached a point where we are travelling by air too much, with dramatic consequences in the shape of huge carbon emissions. The revival of the sleeper train, by contrast, offers a more sustainable means to discover European cities. And through Midnight Trains he aims to convey the message that any holiday should start in the very city where the travellers live, as soon as they board the train. Before even arriving at the given destination, these ‘hotels on rails’ constitute a stay in themselves, an appetiser of the holiday to come: in not seeking to go as fast as possible, our trains will afford passengers the opportunity to relish the state of journeying across the continent, while also doing their bit for the environment. In this way, he thinks there’s something rather theatrical about travelling by sleeper train. First, there’s obviously the fact that you can watch the landscape unfurl before you, while lying in bed. Then there are the encounters in the corridors and in the bar-carriage: conversations that help the time fly by. And you can also rediscover your inner child: in Aouizerate’s case, he has joyful memories of the times his parents would take him on night services to Spain. And that’s actually where he dreams Midnight trains might one day take him; to be precise, Seville – that city that for him embodies human intelligence, along with a form of latent poetry and mystique, which the city has retained in spite of mass tourism. Cyril Aouizerate likes to think that Midnight Trains will soon allow him to wake up in the early hours in the Andalusian city, where you’ll find this seasoned entrepreneur perched on his favourite bench in the Alcázar gardens. | |  |  | Until very recently, you could travel from Paris to Venice on a sleeper service from Thello: a private firm that sadly didn’t survive the ongoing world crisis. But because a trip to Venice always seems like a good idea, we’re going to dedicate this week’s two-minute travel guide to the City of the Doges. After all, this place is so inspiring that several other cities have tried to brand themselves the Venice of Scandinavia (Stockholm), the North (Bruges), the Middle East (Basra) or even the Languedoc (Sète)? There are at least 50 cities around the world who, largely because they’ve got quite a lot of canals, have tried to attract tourists by comparing themselves with La Serenissma. It’s always a bold move, very occasionally deserved, but no other city could match Venice’s magic. We’ll say it straight off the bat: in Venice, everything is beautiful, and whether or not you’ve visited the city before, you’ll no doubt want to take in the classic sights, like the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, St. Mark’s Square or the Grand Canal. They are rites of passage on any trip to the city; marvels that never cease to amaze even the most seasoned of travellers. The only snag? Venice can get incredibly busy, especially around these famous landmarks. So it might be worth considering a few tourist hacks to make sure your holiday takes place in relative serenity. The first one is pretty obvious: wander around early in the morning, around 7am, a time when many other tourists are still asleep. You’ll find the streets surprisingly empty. And the second option, also pretty obvious, is to go in the off-season. No need to be there in summer, for the New Year or during Carnival: the city’s beauty and charm persists all year round. If you do end up going in high season, trust us and… try to get lost. This is pretty simple: the further you get away from the touristy main drags, the more you’ll be able to discover this city’s many hidden corners. Whether on foot or by gondola, wandering off-piste is always worth it in this city. As you meander, you’ll also be able to happen upon a particularly unusual place, very much appreciated by the city’s inhabitants: the Acqua Alta bookshop, filled as it with new releases and secondhand books, perched in disused gondolas and bathtubs and surrounded by knick-knacks of all kinds (plus some resident cats, very much living their best life). In the first room, you’ll find books that tell the story of this marvellous city, while in others you’ll find bestsellers in several languages. And because this place is so damn romantic, there’s even a whole room dedicated to erotic literature. Next, leave the main island and explore further afield. It can be easy to overlook the tens of other beautiful isles that dot the Venetian lagoon, but there are loads that are worth a day trip. Some of the best known are Burano (with its coloured façades) or Murano (whose artisan glassmakers are respected the world over). And then there are the lesser-known ones. Like San Michele, to the north of the city. This small island is an oasis of calm that’s home to the Venetian cemetery where composer Igor Stravinsky was laid to rest. It makes for a tranquil and rather soothing morning walk. A little further away, you could also make it out to San Francesco del Deserto: without a doubt one of the greenest islands in the lagoon. Yet another place you can recuperate after wading through the tourist crowds in the city centre. To round off your trip, you may well want to sit down for a drink in the Cannaregio area, where bacari (wine bars) abound. The Veneto region brims with some of Italy’s finest wines, and we suggest opting for a natural wine that really brings out the flavours of the local terroir: bars La Sete and Vino-Vero can definitely deliver. Then it will be time to fill up on Venetian cuisine, so often an homage to the sea that inspires and nourishes this city. Osteria Anice Stellato and Osteria Da Rioba are two restaurants that never fail to impress. | |  |  | Continuing the Italian theme, this week we’ve asked the team from Désirée to send over a recipe that’ll brighten up your weekend. The ever-innovative Désirée was founded in Paris in 2017, under the aegis of Mathilde Bignon and Audrey Venant. Both very into their flowers, they opened a first, then a second, café-florist – so you can sip coffee surrounded by all manner of brilliant sights and smells. They were making a political point too, because despite there being a very established horticultural industry in France, 85 percent of flowers that are sold are imported (from the Netherlands, Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia and so on), which means the sector has a very high carbon footprint. At Désirée, none of that: all flowers come from the Île-de-France and Var regions. And you’ll find the same sustainable message on the café menu too. Get a feel for the place with this truly unusual panna cotta recipe, the legacy of former Désirée chef, Amandine. You’ll be blown away by its light, silky, almost elusive texture. A brilliant, fresh kick to crown any meal. Ingredients for six people Prep In a pan, bring the milk, cream and sugar to the boil, then add the buckwheat. Let the ingredients infuse, until the taste feels about right (five to ten minutes). Meanwhile, let the gelatine soak in a bowl of water. Sieve the milk and cream to remove remaining buckwheat grains (you could keep them to use in a pancake batter, for example). Warm the mixture again until it reaches at least 40C, but without reaching boiling point, then add the well-drained gelatine. Mix well, then place in the individual serving pots. This panna cotta is light because it mixes cream and milk. By the same token, you could blend your concoction with other herbs, including verbena, agastache and chamomile. If you want to discover more recipes from the brains behind Désirée, do have a look at their book Désirée. Pâtisser, Cultiver, Fleurir, which will tell you more about their local, seasonal approach to cooking. | |  |  | Yep, you probably all know the song we’re recommending from the Midnight Trains playlist this week. So go for it, whack it on, start your day well. The new-age feel of the intro drums, followed up by the synths that imitate the triumphant timbre of trumpets. And so Umberto Tozzi comes in with Gloria, that eternal classic that could be listened to and read in one of two ways. The Italian singer speaks despairingly of the titular Gloria, who torments him as much as she inspires him. Everywhere he goes, she’s there, this Gloria he misses ‘more than the sun’. But then, he goes off on one about the trials of being an artist trying to make something of his life. By any metric, Umberto Tozzi was very much a success. | |  |  | Yet another classic linked with Venice. It must be said that Death in Venice, which bagged Luchino Visconti the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1971, is one of those movies that never gets old. It’s the beginning of the 1910s in Venice. An elderly composer, Gustav von Aschenbach, has come to seek inspiration for his art in La Serenissima, but nothing happens quite as planned. He spots a young Polish man who goes by the name of Tadzio. His androgynous beauty fascinates him, bewitches him, but will he ever actually manage to strike up conversation with the guy? That’s the premise of this spectacular film. We’ll let you discover the dénouement for yourself. Buon fine settimana! | | | |
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