Dobrogea • 2023 • episode "S2E3" • Flavours of Romania

58:57

The seasoned traveller explores the South American country, beginning in the north-east - where Europeans first landed and grew rich on the profits from sugar and tobacco plantations run with slave labour. In Sao Luis, Michael finds out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old tale before heading to the coastal lagoons of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style cowboys known as vaqueiros, has his fortune read by a Candomble priest and learns to drum with the Olodum cultural collective.

S1E1 • Brazil with Michael Palin • 2012 • Travel

47:10

Levison and Alberto trek through beautiful landscapes and colonial cities, climb active volcanoes and mountains, navigate deadly highways and meet fishermen and migrants.

S1E3 • Walking the Americas with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel

58:58

On the last leg of his journey across the South American country, Michael explores the Brazilian south, where he is surprised by the rich diversity of European and Asian influences. Along the way he meets Dom Joao de Orleans e Braganca, second in line of succession to Brazil's defunct throne, goes flying with a man who has made a fortune out of rubbish and meets rap star Criolo, who believes social equality is a distant dream for most of his countrymen. Travelling farther south to Blumenau, the former Python's views on what makes a typical Brazilian are challenged when he finds German speakers and Bavarian dancers, before he catches piranha for sushi and helps cowboys treat a calf attacked by a jaguar

S1E4 • Brazil with Michael Palin • 2012 • Travel

58:56

For Ray Mears there is one British pioneer who stands above all others in the exploration of Canada. That man is Samuel Hearne. In learning to travel using First Nations skills, he set the template for successful travel into Canada's wilderness. Hearne's story is defined by hardship and adventure, an inspiring tale made more powerful by the journal he left as a legacy. In a celebration of one of Earth's last great wilderness

S1E3 • Ray Mears's Northern Wilderness • 2009 • Travel

45:07

Bettany visits the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor where, for 500 years, the Ancient Egyptians buried their pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings, among them the boy-king Tutankhamun. However, the historian crosses the local hills to the Workers' Village, where generations of skilled royal tomb-builders lived. As it turns out, they also dumped masses of domestic rubbish, which is now giving some insight into the highs, lows and preoccupations of ancient Egyptians. Bettany then heads south on the Nile's oldest steam ship SS Sudan, which inspired Agatha Christie to write Death on the Nile.

S1E3 • The Nile: Egypt's Great River with Bettany Hughes • 2019 • Travel

58:32

He explores how the artistic life of three Japanese cities shaped the country's attitudes to past and present, east and west, and helped forge the very idea of Japan itself. In Kyoto, James reveals how the flowering of classical culture produced many treasures of Japanese art, including The Tale of Genji, considered to be the first novel ever written. In Edo, where Tokyo now stands, a very different art form emerged, in the wood block prints of artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. James meets the artisans still creating these prints today, and discovers original works by a great master, Utamaro, who documented the so-called 'floating world'. In contemporary Tokyo, James discovers the darker side of Japan's urbanisation through the photographs of Daido Moriyama, and meets a founder of the Studio Ghibli, Isao Takahata, whose film Grave of the Fireflies helped establish anime as a powerful and serious art form.

S1E2 • The Art of Japanese Life • 2017 • Travel