Lily Parker (Cheryl Ladd) is a sophisticated American magazine editor on a business trip in Europe with her outgoing best friend Susan Lawson (Ruby Wax). Susan convinces her to travel from Venice to Paris by train, instead of by plane. They board the Orient Express, where Susan hopes to find romance. Meanwhile, the atmosphere reminds Lily of a train trip 10 years earlier, when she was a 19-year-old college student traveling through Europe with her friend Stacey (Betsy Brantley). On that trip, she met Alex Woodward (Stuart Wilson (actor)), an aristocratic Englishman who courted her but then disappeared completely.