La Dolce Vita on Rails – Perhaps the Most Beautiful Way to Play Golf in Italy

Some experiences can’t be measured in stars, square metres or price tags. They begin the moment a porter takes your luggage. When the everyday is left behind on the platform. When the doors of the La Dolce Vita Orient Express slide quietly shut and, all at once, nothing else matters. Perhaps that’s the real luxury of travel: not arriving faster, but savouring the moment.

La Dolce Vita on Rails – Perhaps the Most Beautiful Way to Play Golf in Italy

Three hours before departure, the La Dolce Vita Lounge at Roma Ostiense station opens its doors. A private transfer has already brought you straight from your hotel or the airport, and suddenly there’s no rush left. No glance at the departures board. Just this one quiet moment, before anything even begins.

And then, some time in the evening, the doors of the train close softly – twelve carriages, reimagined in 1960s style – and with them, everyday life.

Seven or Eleven Square Metres – Here, That’s the Only Luxury Question

On board, two cabin categories await, both sharing the same signature: cool tones, mirrored panelling, a ceiling of timber slats. The Deluxe Cabin measures seven square metres. By night, the sofa becomes a double bed, 140 by 190 centimetres, with its own bathroom.

The Suite is larger, eleven square metres, laid out as a separate bedroom with a sofa, table and two armchairs for the sociable part of the evening. Outside the window, the whole of Italy is passing by right now – and suddenly, every square metre feels rather beside the point.

On this train, there’s no longer any difference between the journey and the destination.

Heinz Beck Curates: Where Italy Is Served Course by Course

There are restaurants with three Michelin stars. And then there’s a three-star chef who curates the culinary journey through Italy itself – brought to your table course by course by his team on board.

Heinz Beck doesn’t simply design a dinner. He composes a culinary journey through Italy, which his team on board turns into reality, dish by dish. Each route carries its own signature, shaped by the landscapes, produce and traditions passing by outside the window right now.

In Piedmont you taste truffle, in the south the sea, in Tuscany vineyards and warmth. Alongside it, a curated selection of Italian wines, a service that feels effortless even on rails, and the sense that, right now, everything is exactly as it should be.

Northern Greens: Four Courses in Four Days

It begins in the evening in Rome. As the La Dolce Vita Orient Express rolls slowly north, the journey opens with dinner, the bar car, and that relaxed elegance this train is built for.

Day two brings Piedmont. You play at Royal Park I Roveri, set within the La Mandria nature park just outside Turin. With the Alps on the horizon, generous fairways, and the quiet exclusivity of one of Europe’s most prestigious private golf clubs.

On day three, the train glides on to Franciacorta, past gentle hills and well-known vineyards, to the golf club of the same name – technically demanding, with a view that makes even a bogey seem rather less painful.

The finale is The Club at Castiglion del Bosco – a place where even golf sounds a little like Italian design history. The club was founded by Massimo Ferragamo, son of the celebrated Florentine fashion dynasty. The course was laid out by former Open Champion and celebrated golf architect Tom Weiskopf, who traced its fairways almost naturally into the soft contours of the UNESCO-protected Val d’Orcia.

The Signature Fairway Collection then adds an extra night at Orient Express La Minerva and a round at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, just outside Rome. Exactly where Europe won the Ryder Cup, and where we all sat in front of the television, willing on every single point. And suddenly, you’re standing on those very fairways yourself – right where we all got goosebumps.

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Italian Swing: From Puglia to Tuscany

The second route of the La Dolce Vita Orient Express runs from Rome via Puglia and Siena into Tuscany – before finally returning to the Italian capital.

You play at San Domenico Golf Club in Fasano, a links course overlooking the Adriatic, where golf and coastline are barely distinguishable.

From there, it’s on to Tuscany, to The Club at Castiglion del Bosco in the Val d’Orcia – the very same course that gives Northern Greens its goosebump moment, here as a stop on the way back to Rome.

Day four brings you to either Antognolla Golf Club or Argentario Golf Club – both among the most striking landscapes in Italy – before the journey home in the light of the setting sun, back to Rome.

In the end, really only one question remains – and it rather answers itself: years from now, you may not remember every birdie. But you’ll certainly remember that one moment, as Italy drifted slowly past the window and Heinz Beck’s team on board was already serving the next course.

Some journeys take you to a place. This one changes how you get there.

A little Whenever. Whatever. And a great deal of Dolce Vita.

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