#The Varda viaduct near Adana – the Taurus Express
originally ran onward to Syria and Iraq, but this service is currently
suspended
BELIEVE it or
not, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient
Express doesn’t begin on the
eponymous luxury service – it starts on the lesser-known Taurus Express, the
train that carried a snoozing Hercule Poirot across Anatolia to Istanbul. Part of
his route is still probably today: board a southbound train at the town of
Konya (famed for its whirling dervishes) before the line sweeps through the
canyons and snow-capped peaks of the Taurus range. The view from the window is
as wondrous as it was to the perceptive eyes of the Belgian sleuth: tilled
fields interspersed with the minarets of Ottoman mosques, and mountain villages
with tidy yellow station houses. The grand finale is the century-old Varda
viaduct (James Bond fell off the bridge in the opening scene of the movie Skyfall), before the train grinds to a halt
just short of the Mediterranean at Adana.
The journey from Konya to Adana takes up to 6½
hours (first class seats ; tcdd.gov.tr).
In 2015, a newly opened high-speed line should connect Konya to Istanbul as
part of Turkey’s rail modernization plan – check the Man in Seat 61 website for updates (seat61.com).
