The legendary Orient Express train was on display at the Gare de l’Est railway station in Paris on Tuesday 26th April.

France’s state-owned rail company SNCF opened the train, the set of the famous Agatha Christie’s novel, to the public for an unprecedented tour.

The event marks the SNCF Thriller Prize finals, consisting in readers’ voting for their favorite detective novel of the year, along with an exhibition “Trains du mystere” showing the interlaces between rail and crime literature in the past 150 years.

A favourite of royals seeking luxury, writers looking for the muse and undercover spies, Pera Palace — Istanbul’s hotel of mysteries and pomp — has reopened after a major facelift to revive its past grandeur.

Built in the late 19th century for the passengers of the legendary Orient Express, the 115-room hotel has hosted generations of illustrious guests, from King Edward VIII and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain or the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock or Greta Garbo.

It was the place where crime writer Agatha Christie crafted “Murder on the Orient Express”, and where Ernest Hemingway is said to have sipped at a whisky, watching the sunlight play on the waters of the Golden Horn.

Following the footsteps of Nicole Kidman, actress Audrey Tautou will step into the starring role of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet-directed commercial for Chanel No. 5

The theme is missed encounters between strangers — played by Tautou and model Travis Davenport — as they ride the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul.

There is no dialogue, only the vivid color imagery Jeunet is known for: as Billie Holiday’s “I’m a Fool to Want You” plays, he lingers outside her train cabin, and later, in Istanbul, she misses the riverboat he is on, only to photograph him on deck from another ship later.