(The Chicago Sun-Times posted the following article by Brenda Warner Rotzoll on its website on May 26.)
CHICAGO — Got a week and a few thousand dollars to spare? You, too, can travel in Orient Express-style luxury through the Canadian Rockies in elegant old railcars literally fit for a queen.
Queen Elizabeth when she still was a princess; her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; the duke of Edinburgh and Prime Minister Winston Churchill all traveled in some of the very cars that, meticulously restored, now are used for Royal Canadian Pacific tours run by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Eleven cars built in the early 1900s for railroad executives to travel in on business are paneled with Circassian mahogany. Hardware is original, as are glass shades on light fixtures. Huge brass fans near the ceiling still stir the air, although these days modern air-conditioning equipment has been fitted into the soffits that in the 1920s held huge blocks of ice.
Full-size single and double beds, all at lower level, are in 10-foot-square rooms with private bathrooms.
Views in the Canadian Rockies are spectacular and so is the food on these trains. When some of the cars were in Chicago recently chef Denis Sirois served a light three-course lunch–dinners are the more luxurious five courses–featuring cream of asparagus soup; lemon-pepper linguini with a creamed tomato sauce that included chorizo sausage, corn-fed chicken, roasted bell peppers and melted goat cheese, and pecan praline creme brulee garnished with a caramel spring of spun sugar. Chef Denis’ true passion is desserts.
What’s your pleasure? There are basic but beautiful sight-seeing trips, with hiking if you feel like it; golf tours; fishing tours; a special culinary, wine and music trip. Or you can ante up some pals and some bucks and Canadian Pacific will take you anywhere its rails and those of cooperating railroads go.
Six-day tours through some of the world’s most spectacular mountain scenery start and end in Calgary, Alberta. They range, in U.S. dollars, from $3,750 to $5,450 per person double occupancy or $4,100 to $5,850 single occupancy.
For people really pressed for time there’s a two-day, two-night Mount Fairview expedition for $2,275 double occupancy or $2,400 single occupancy.
Specifically
For details, visit www.cprtours.com or call (877) 665-3044.