For decades people have speculated about this image: American Girl in Italy, by the great US photographer Ruth Orkin. On Florence’s Piazza della Repubblica in 1951, a tall young woman in a black dress walks the gauntlet between clusters of suit-wearing men. A few of them are leering at her. One man grabs his crotch, his lips pursed around some presumably unprintable utterance. Almost all of them are following her with their eyes. The woman’s face is hard to read, though she seems aggrieved by the attention – if not outright fearful for her safety.

In fact, according to the woman herself, Ninalee Allen Craig, there was something altogether more playful going on – though she insisted, to counter another assumption, that the photograph wasn’t staged. Craig, 23 at the time, was travelling around Europe when she encountered Orkin, who was staying at the same dollar-a-night hotel as her in Florence. The two women shared notes on solo travel and Orkin proposed a photo essay on the subject.

The next day they jaunted around the city, Orkin snapping the younger woman as she gazed at statues, chatted across café tables and rode shotgun in an open-top sports car.

At the Piazza della Repubblica, Orkin asked Allen to walk the gauntlet twice. The first time, Allen “clutched at herself and looked terribly frightened”, Orkin recalled in 1979. “I told her to walk by the second time, ‘as if it’s killing you but you’re going to make it’” – and that’s the shot that was used.

Allen’s memory of the scene was much sunnier. “I was having the time of my life,” she told CNN in 2017, the year before she died aged 90. “I was Beatrice walking through the streets of Florence.” In an interview with the Guardian she said the image “has been interpreted in a sinister way but it was quite the opposite. [The men] were having fun and so was I.”

Orkin’s photographs of Allen were published in Cosmopolitan in 1952. The article, featuring tips on “money, men and morals to see you through a gay trip and a safe one”, was entitled Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone. 

New York – New York, a show of photographs by Ruth Orkin, will be at CDIS / PhotoEspaña in Santander from 18 July to 18 October

When it comes to railway adventures, there are few things more exciting than falling asleep in one city and waking in the next, nudging up the blind to see what lies outside. Whether that reveals the golden haze of dawn or a moonlit night still holding on, the moment is one that’s always filled with magic.

For the last three years I’ve been journeying around Europe documenting the resurgence in sleeper trains, watching passengers drift back to the romance of the railways, eschewing budget flights and bullet trains for cosy couchettes and a slower mode of travel. For scenery, comfort, and camaraderie, these are the seven best night trains that Europe has to offer.

The Good Night Train: Brussels, Belgium to Berlin, Germany

Crowdfunded, and launched by a Belgian-Dutch collective named European Sleeper, The Good Night Train made its inaugural run from Brussels to Berlin in May 2023 and has since extended its route to Dresden and Prague, with a winter service to Venice. Set up by two night-train enthusiasts, European Sleeper offers a no-frills service whose hodgepodge of carriages date back to the 1950s—but no one on board is bothered, and raucous groups uncork wine and spread out slabs of pâté and cheese in what feels like a house party on wheels. With a mixture of sleeper and couchette compartments, the train departs Brussels three times a week, clattering out of the Belgian capital at 7.20 p.m. and pulling passengers through Flanders’ golden meadows and waterways that turn blush in the setting sun. Stopping at Amsterdam, where canals glimmer through the darkness, the train then runs smoothly through the night, with barely a jolt or jerk, giving passengers a chance to sleep deeply before a dawn arrival in Berlin.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, a Belmond train: Paris, France to Portofino, Italy

With its iconic blue carriages and gold trimming, Belmond’s legendary train is a familiar sight to lovers of luxury travel, but this route is a well-kept secret, and the most scenic of them all. Running only once a year in summer, the VSOE departs Paris Austerlitz at 3 p.m., taking passengers to the pastel-colored town of Portofino. To the pop of a bottle of Ruinart champagne served with Petrossian caviar and blinis, the train thumps and clacks south of the French capital, picking up pace through villages and vineyards, warm air billowing through the wind-down windows. Over a black-tie dinner, guests are serenaded before moving piano-side for an all-night singalong, the bar only closing when the last passenger has left. Wisely, Belmond ensures that the train stables at midnight at Avignon, granting passengers five hours of undisturbed sleep in damask bedding until the train departs at dawn. Nudge up the blind and bite into warm croissants as you watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean, paddle boarders on the waters, and purple bougainvillea blooming by the tracks. The rest of the journey is nothing but sparkling ocean, beaches and palms, ending with two nights at the newly renovated Hotel Splendido in Portofino, overlooking the bay.

Santa Claus Express: Helsinki to Rovaniemi, Finland

A regular passenger train that runs year-round, the Santa Claus Express is Finland’s flagship service carrying riders from Helsinki into Rovaniemi, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Best ridden in winter, this green and white double-decker beast departs just before 7.30 p.m. and takes 12 hours to wind north through forests of fir sagging under the weight of snow. Filled with young families and tourists keen to meet the big man at Santa Claus Village, the train features some of Europe’s most comfortable compartments with wide berths, underfloor heating, and toilets that fold down into showers. Pro tip: Hop on, dump bags, and dash to the tinsel-covered dining car for smoked reindeer stew and steaming bowls of meatballs and mash before it fills up with drinkers who won’t shift until dawn. From the windows passengers can watch as nativity scenes twinkle through the woods, foxes dart through empty car parks, and Finland’s freshwater lakes gleam like pools of black ink.