Exotic Luxury Train Tour: A Caspian Odyssey with Angela
Mt. Ararat (above), reputed resting place of Noah’s Ark, towers over Yerevan, Armenia. It’s the jumping-off point for the Caspian Odyssey Along the Ancient Silk Road tour.
The 16-day tour visits Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan — and includes a ferry crossing of the Caspian Sea.
It’s one of the Golden Eagle luxury train’s most exotic tours.
IRT’s Angela Walker, Vice President for Operations, accompanied a group of our travelers on the Caspian Odyssey several years ago.
Below, we present a few of Angela’s photos and impressions:
The Golden Eagle — with its young staff —was a comfortable home for our journey through six countries and cultures. It provided all the comforts of home — and plenty of vodka!
My fellow travelers were high-spirited and great fun. Here we are in Samarkand, wearing traditional Uzbek hats during a local fashion show.
I snapped this photo of a darling little girl during a serendipitous moment in Ashkabat, Turkmenistan.
During a regular tour stop, a wedding party suddenly pulled up honking in several decorated cars. Dressed in colorful costumes, they danced and celebrated as they happily welcomed us to join in. It was wonderful to interact with the locals in such a special way.
In Almaty, Kazakhstan, next to the WWII memorial, I spied these adorable children mimicking the marching soldiers.
In the hills outside of Almaty, we were greeted by men in traditional costumes showing how they use their birds for hunting.
These four delightful ladies in our group were friends from Peru and Argentina. Here, they enjoy the train’s lounge car—especially its lively pianist, who entertained nightly.
Here I am visiting “The Door to Hell” — a gigantic gas crater in the middle of Uzbekistan’s Kara Kum desert, which has been burning for over 40 years.
It was so exciting to drive out to the Darvaza gas crater, in the pitch-black night, to see this site — essentially, a giant hole of fire burning in the middle of nowhere.
And to know that it’s been burning since 1971 — I don’t think there’s anything like it in the world!
Home, sweet home. After a day of touring along the Caspian Odyssey’s incredible path, it was always great to return to the Golden Eagle and my private, en-suite quarters.
Time for a refreshing drink! In this case, a sampling of one of the Golden Eagle’s special vodkas.
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The 16-day, escorted tour operates just once a year. Next year’s dates are Sept. 19 – Oct. 4. In 2020, the tour runs Sept. 24 – Oct. 9. If you book the 2020 journey before Dec. 31 this year, enjoy 2019 pricing.
To see the complete itinerary, click here. For prices, click here.
To book, call us at (800) 478-4881 (+1 502-897-1725 if outside the US/Canada), or e-mail us.
We look forward to welcoming you aboard!
Angela Walker is Vice President, Operations and senior luxury travel advisor for The Society of International Railway Travelers. This is Ms. Walker’s 20th year with IRT, and she has traveled on most of the World’s Top 25 Trains.
