'I've been lucky enough to have visited
'some thrilling places over the years.'
Holy smoke!
'Travel is in my blood.
'And I'm delighted I've been able to take you with me
'on these journeys.'
Hang on a second, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
'What you eventually see on your screen takes weeks to shoot
'and months to edit.'
Look at this!
It's magic.
'We haven't always had the time to show you everything we film.'
Stark naked and swimming like a fish.
'But we kept the unshown stories safe.'
I sort of... pretty much love these, actually.
'So, I've gone back as far as east as Japan, all across the world,
'to Cuba in the west.'
Are you a pirate? No.
Phew.
'And now I can reveal this treasure trove.'
On our way to Shi... LAUGHS
'Also, to show you a little about how these programmes are made.'
These rather grand and beautiful houses are called yelley, they're...
Ooh!
'And why I love making them.'
Here's my new nanna. Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.
'Welcome, to my Unseen Adventures.'
We'd been trying to go to Iran for about five years.
Since the Shah had been deposed and the new regime came in,
nobody went there.
It was difficult to go there. Foreigners weren't welcome.
It's a country I have longed to visit.
My grandfather was there 100 years ago in the Diplomatic Service,
and he and my grandmother absolutely adored it.
And so it was something that was in our family history.
Persia was just somewhere extraordinary.
We'd got everything ready, but it still took us forever to get in.
We thought, "This is going to be tough."
The second we crossed over and were in Iran itself, everything opened.
All the doors opened. It was so exciting.
'Iran was formerly Persia.
'And 500 years before Christ,
'it commanded a huge and sophisticated empire,
'stretching from eastern Europe to Pakistan.
'The history of Persia and the history, in particular, of one man.'
Cyrus, one of the greatest human beings that ever lived.
One of the most extraordinary men,
who is much needed in the world today because of what he thought.
'I wanted to see his tomb,
'which I knew was just a masterpiece of architecture,
'standing alone in its great desert place.'
'2,500 years ago, Cyrus created a Bill of Rights
'around a philosophy of tolerance, compassion and human liberty.
'Its message was inscribed onto a clay cylinder.
'And such is its wisdom and virtue that a replica is kept
'in the United Nations headquarters in New York
'as a reminder to us all.'
The crew had been just filming monument after monument after ruin,
and I dragged them out of the way and I said,
"Please, we have to see Cyrus' tomb."
So, a little bit of grumbling. I know they're grateful to me,
they are often grateful to me about all kinds of things,
but for this in particular,
they've seen one of the great monuments of the world.
It was baking!
'It was a very trying day.'
I'm not going to be speaking, because I'm walking.
Don't yawn, please, Clive, don't. It's terribly distracting.
CLIVE: OK, well, can you clean your glasses, please.
Yeah. I'll do them now.
Is it cos you want to see yourself in them...
Yes. ..or because you think they look like old ladies glasses?
Do they have food on them, or something? Bits of potato? God.
On our way to Shiraz,
we've stopped to see this extraordinary monument.
It's the tomb... no.
'By the time we started filming, the temperature was over 50 degrees,
'and the tourists walking on the noisy gravel
'were playing havoc with our sound recording.'
Look at the sun behind it. GRAVEL CRUNCHES BENEATH FEET
It seems to kind of shine this strange...
MULTIPLE FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL
CLIVE: Sorry, can you just start that one again, Joanna.
It was really... FOOTSTEPS CRUNCH
..a series of... I honestly don't...
I honestly think all our effort. Is Clive helping there?
CAMERAMAN: 'No.'
LAUGHTER
CLIVE: OK, and, er...
Speed, Joanna.
You will have to go further than that, Joanna.
Oh, well tell me where...
'There, our cameraman became obsessed with a thistle.
'He wanted to have a thistle in the front of shot
'and me walking to the back a shot.'
And there wasn't a thistle there.
So, I said, "I don't think the thistle really matters."
And he said, "No, I want the thistle."
'He was being very artistic.'
On our way to... LAUGHTER
CREW LAUGH
Please, can we not have the thistle.
It's turning into a really tense shot, this.
'It looks great.'
'Eventually, we were able to focus on Cyrus's tomb.'
'I had long been fascinated by this man,
'because he was extraordinarily respectful
'of the many people he conquered.
'He allowed them to govern themselves
'and worship as they wished.
'He ruled, but with a gentle hand.'
He said that all the slaves were to be freed and allowed to go home.
He said that there should be absolute equality between religion,
racial distinguishments and linguistics.
All of those should be treated as absolutely equal,
and he said that every temple that had been destroyed must be rebuilt.
A man of such benevolence. He was adored.
In fact, the Iranian people voted him the most famous
and lovely Iranian of all time.
Which didn't go down terribly well with the present regime,
but that's a fact.
There's a fabulous speech in Shakespeare,
which I'm obviously not going to tell you now - oh, yes, I am.
It's Portia's speech, which is the Quality Of Mercy.
And in it she says,
"Earthly power doth then show likest God's when mercy seasons justice."
She says that the attributes of all majesty are mercy.
So, the more powerful you are, the gentler you can be.
And Persia had this tradition
of being the iron fist in a velvet glove.
Treating people gently, but when it needed to, bam.
'We had a fantastic female fixer in Iran called Mannas.
'She was brilliant, and completely fearless.'
Do you want some of your lovely aloe vera?
Yes, please. Thank you so much.
'She's been to jail four times in Iran,
'but she still loves her country and knows everything.
'As we barrelled across hundreds of miles of desert
'on our Iranian roadtrip, she was great company.'
I'm just going to have a go at letting these flies out.
Yeah. Disturbing.
Flies, go out!
Mine has gone.
THEY LAUGH
'We were on the way to the desert city of Yazd
'where I was hoping to see the Zurkhaneh,
'the strange of an ancient blend of music, physicality and high morals.
'Mannas was able to tell me all about these men.'
So, this extraordinary body-building technique,
it's more than just being strong, isn't it? Exactly.
I'm travelling to the city, I don't have any...
I don't know any person on that city.
If I found... I find one of those guys,
their house is open for you and you can trust on any way.
It's extraordinary. So, they are honourable people, brave.
Yeah, trustable.
Trustable, I love that word,
So, it's a sort of vow you take to become part of this brotherhood?
Yeah. How fantastic.
'I remember being astonished at the remoteness of Yazd.
'It lies at the border of two of Iran's largest deserts
'and is one of the oldest cities on the Earth.
'When we were here, we investigated Zoroastrianism,
'a religion that started here in Persia 3,500 years ago.'
Zoroaster, the great priest, whose name also is Zarathushtra.
Also Sprach Zarathustra, you know that famous piece which is played...
MIMICS MUSIC: Dun-dun-dun-baa!
Richard Strauss. Play it now.
MUSIC PLAYS That's it.
That's Zarathustra.
MUSIC: 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' by Richard Strauss.
'I remember the students playing charades in the back streets.'
Walt Disney, Walt Disney.
CLAPPING
'And this time,
'I can bring you the amazing spectacle of the Zurkhaneh
'in one of their musical training sessions.'
VOCALISES ZURKHANEH MUSIC
RHYTHMIC BEAT
'The men limber up in a preordained routine.
'Their every move is co-ordinated by the rhythmic drumming and chanting
'of Persian poetry from the Morshed, who sits above.'
This is limbering up for the next bit,
which has these huge wooden dumbbells -
that's not the right word, but great wooden things.
But it's really lovely, cos watching it,
I almost thought I could almost join in. I mean, obviously, not.
Look they've got these things.
Zurkhaneh is the art of chivalry
that was originally used to train Persian warriors.
RHYTHMIC DRUMMING
There's something happening now with great jingling... bell.
BELL RINGS
'Zurkhaneh is often touted as the reason why Iran wins
'international wrestling and weightlifting events.
HE SINGS
'The Kabbadeh, a heavy rod of iron connected to a chain,
'symbolises ancient war bows.
'Some of them weigh over 100 lbs.'
SINGS ZURKHANEH POETRY
I think I'm going to sneak out now, I think there's a bit of a break.
WHISPERS: Goodnight, boys, goodnight.
Merci. Merci, thank you very much indeed.
That was wonderful, thank you.
'For me, 2018 was the year of the Silk Road.
'We filmed in eight countries in all,
'and the second episode brought me to the shores of the Caspian Sea
'and the intriguing town of Baku in Azerbaijan.'
I've usually heard of the towns and cities we're going to visit
before we get there.
I'd never heard of Baku. I mean, shame on me, but I hadn't.
The second we'd filmed there, I only heard of Baku,
Baku was on everybody's lips.
There was a European Cup final was there,
Eurovision Song Contest was there, everything suddenly was Baku, Baku!
"Oh, surely, you've been to Baku, Baku, in Baku."
Well, when we got there, what was I expecting?
It was sensationally modern.
JOANNA GASPS
Look at this!
It's magic.
'This place reeks of money,
'and the gleaming, modern architecture that forms the skyline
'is testament to that.
'Despite my vertigo, I was dragged up onto the roof
'of the Rose Petal Building.'
So, I'm tied on to the roof, so even if I just go, "Ah,"
like a girlie and fall off, I'll be attached.
Um, and now we're going up.
This is a very steep slope, but we've got a lovely rubber mat.
And I've got a hand to hold, too.
Oh, my giddy aunt!
'But there's a whole lot more to Baku that you didn't get to see
'the first time round.'
Oh, this is just marvellous.
This part of Baku is called the White City.
It used to be called the Black City
because it was so polluted and so dark and filthy,
but now it's been completely rebuilt
and you can see they've planted new trees.
Beautiful, and then you come out from old,
straight back into new again.
'Baku's ostentatious new buildings seem to compete with one another
'to be the most outlandish.'
Look at that!
That's the Heydar Aliyev Centre,
built to commemorate the founding father of modern-day Azerbaijan.
The architect? The legendary Zaha Hadid,
and it contains an exhibition about the great man's life.
And he was a great man. I mean,
even his opponents think he was a genius.
And if you look at this fabulous building from the sky
it's built on a... a stylised version
of Heydar Aliyev's signature. Amazing!
UPBEAT MUSIC
'As we travelled across Azerbaijan,
'I was getting worried about the lack of shopping opportunities.'
Whenever you're travelling - actually, wherever you are -
even if you're travelling in your own country,
you want to go into a little shop and buy something.
I don't know why, you just long to buy something.
It isn't clothes and things, it might be something to eat,
some excuse for that, or it might be a little memento,
something you want to take home.
You want to spend money, you just want to go and buy something.
We'd heard of this,
not a street market so much as a road market.
So, we get there and we pull up and, ahh, it looks ravishing!
Jugs and jars of pickles and fruits and things.
And they're not in jars just fresh things,
you think, "Oh, we'd better buy plenty of this."
I don't think I've ever seen vegetable stalls like this.
Hazelnuts and walnuts, and we've got nectarines and peaches.
But look at those figs, I've never seen figs that size. Gooseberries.
Salam, salam, salam. Salam, darling.
Fresh delicious cherries.
Little, tiny wild raspberries, thank you.
Gholosorkh. Rose water.
That's rose water. Look at that.
That's something divine. That's for your heart.
So, he spotted me, poor eyesight and a rasping heart,
but look at that, look at those little flowers in there.
INDISTINCT CHAT
Darling, I love you, look I love the teeth as well,
I love it, look, here's my new nanny. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
LAUGHTER
Can you change that for me? Uh-huh.
There we are. Is that too big?
So, that was 15, so, that's quite a lot of money
for my little pot of jam, quite a lot,
but there we are, I didn't ask, cos that's my fault.
SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
Your mother pick, pick, pick, pick from here.
Look at that, how much is this?
REPLIES IN OWN LANGUAGE
25. OK.
So, that's... TRADER SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
£10. So, do you know what I mean?
There we are. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye, darlings. A lot, a lot.
Darling, I've run out of money, as you can see,
I've used all my money up.
That was quite expensive.
£10 for a pot of something. Well, they were collected by hand,
her mother collected them by hand from up here,
"Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick."
'I was completely ripped off.'
I think I paid about £15 for a pot of jam.
I didn't mind.
Look my face, did I mind?
JOANNA LUMLEY: 'From gleaming Azerbaijan, we travelled west
'to the ex-Russian
'and now fiercely-independent country of Georgia.'
When people say to me, "Which country that you visited
"would you advise our family to go to?"
I pretty much always now say Georgia.
It is simply spectacular.
It's got the coast, it's got Batumi on the Black Sea,
it's got the great Caucasus Mountains,
but above all, it's an extremely brave
and fine and independent little country.
It's got its own language,
you haven't a hope in hell of learning it,
because it's got its own alphabet, you can't read it.
It's got delicious food,
it is the oldest wine-making region in the whole world,
it's been making wine for 8,000 years.
Every part of it is simply wonderful.
'The Caucasus Mountains form an imposing geographic border
'with Georgia's northern neighbour, Russia.
'It's beautiful up there,
'but it's not just the scenery that takes your breath away.'
These roads are absolutely hair-raising.
I mean, it's a brilliant piece of engineering.
But actually they're just winding round, hair-pin bends,
sheer drops, and sometimes you've got the wandering cows...
SING-SONG VOICE: ..so it's all quite hazardous!
It is thrilling. If I could stop looking at the road
I would be very, very thrilled.
It is so perilous here.
Little bits of wire stopping you falling huge distances into a valley
and probably saying, "Goodnight, nurse" at the end of it.
FROM CAR: Whoops.
'Georgians grow an immense amount of fresh vegetables.
'And if you go there, I assure you,
'you'll become a fan of their delicious cuisine.'
'Don't let anything put you off.'
When you look at this, this is a light Georgian lunch,
it's got this stuff called khachapuri,
which is kind of cheesy, bready, potato-y stuff,
delicious salad, gherkins, couldn't be nicer,
but I have the strangest feeling that I'm being overlooked.
Joseph Stalin.
Well, Joseph Stalin was born in Georgia.
He was born in Gori in 1879.
When Lenin died in 1924,
Joe Stalin took over the reins of power,
and he remained in power until 1953, when he died.
During his, well, reign of terror,
millions of Russians were killed, some say as many as ten million.
He persecuted them, he executed them,
there were famines, there were purges,
it was a simply terrible time.
And although the young now condemn him,
hate the thought of his history,
the old people have a sense of nostalgia for Uncle Joe.
When he was young, he looked like a rock star.
When he was old, with his big moustache
and his fine Georgian face,
he looked very impressive.
And, so, the kind of mists of memory have clouded over,
the rose pink clouds of memory
made him seem like a genial old uncle
instead of one of the worst murderers of the 20th century,
or indeed of all time.
Anyway, the waterfall is falling, and it's cool and delicious
and I've got khachapuri to dig into, and life is sweet.
And Stalin's gone.
'The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi.
'This city seems to have an old,
'wise and sophisticated style about it.
'I was completely smitten.'
I fell in love with Tbilisi the second I arrived,
it's built on hills, it's a spa city, it's very beautiful,
its architecture is quite wonderful,
a lot of it is crumbling away, and it's kind of poor,
it's been a bit neglected, but it is simply sensational.
During the 18th century,
Tbilisi was known as the Southern Jewel in the Russian Empire's crown
because of its immense civilisation and culture
and architectural beauty.
It's just so stunning, but sadly now a bit shabby,
because during the Soviet era,
a lot of these houses were subdivided,
as they are in all great cities,
and a lot of them have simply fallen down.
A lot of them being tacked together with bits of old tin.
But some people are making a valiant effort
to keep them alive and intact.
'The Kipshidzes' fantastic home was built in 1897,
'and it's been in the family ever since.
'Last time, we had had a tour of their incredible house,
'but now time we can also stop for some tea
'and share some old family photographs.'
And this is my grandfather and my grandmother.
Beautiful photograph.
So, this was a grand family in Tbilisi.
Yes, their name was Nikoloz.
Look how handsome, look at that handsome boy.
Yeah, he's very good-looking.
And how he loved black and white.
Look at him. That's a fantastic picture.
He knows how to pose it. He does, doesn't he?
'Katarina's grandfather was a doctor, and in 1951,
'he found himself attending to Georgia's most infamous son.'
'Stalin's paranoia was such that he ordered the arrest
'and torture of hundreds of doctors, accusing them of poisoning him.'
'A great many of the doctors were killed.
'But luckily, Katarina's grandfather was not amongst them.
'In fact, he helped save the lives of three other medical men
'who had been forced to treat the dictator.'
And here he is, reading a paper,
and it looks as though he's on this very balcony here, is that right?
Yes. It's exactly the same,
it hasn't changed at all, has it? No, it hasn't.
It is so beautiful, it really, really is.
I've never fallen in love with a city
as fast as Tbilisi. I adore it.
'I'd been to Turkey before,
'but on our 2018 Silk Road travels,
'we explored some of the lesser-known parts
'of this breath-taking country.
'Spending time with the semi-nomadic Hensen people
'in the eastern highlands was a particular joy.
'And such stunning landscapes to travel through.'
'In central Turkey, we explored some of
'the long-neglected 13th-century churches.
'Vandalised over the centuries and used as animal keeps,
'they were a far cry from the spectacular renovated churches
'around Cappadocia.'
This is majestic, absolutely every inch of it painted.
'Cappadocia is extraordinary.
'It looks like a mass of ant hills with holes in them.'
I'd seen photographs, of course,
but I had no idea what it would be like to be there
in these sort of ancient villages which are built into the hillside.
Very beautiful.
However, practically all the photographs I'd seen of Cappadocia
in these extraordinary places had balloons over them.
Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't want to do it.
All that night I put a hex on it,
I said, "Don't let me go up in the balloon".
And the next morning, it was grey
and there was a very strong wind blowing,
and they said, "Sorry, no balloons going up today."
MOUTHS: Yes!
If you want things changed, world events changed, come to me.
'In Cappadocia, the accommodation was well above standard,
'but several feet below ground.'
Come and look at this. It's fantastic.
'In Cappadocia, we stayed in a hotel which was built into the hillside,
'and to sleep in a room which is hollowed out into the rock'
and you know that people have lived there for thousands of years
is very exciting, it's very different.
You have different dreams, and it's thrilling.
You can't really go to sleep at night
for looking at these strange, porous walls
and imagining who was there before you.
CALL TO PRAYER
'It was fascinating to meet Asli Ozbay,
'one of the architects who's been redeveloping the area
'and making astonishing discovering along the way.'
The guy who actually erected this place came here,
he bought a building, he started to restorate it.
But they discovered a huge space underneath the road,
which turned out to be the main church
of the Byzantine underground city. It was a huge surprise.
Then he started buying the surrounding lots,
and here we are, still discovering for 22 years,
trying to reconstruct the old demolished village
in Cappadocia.
Many of which... Because my beautiful bedroom here
goes back right into the wall.
This is going into the old cave dwellings that people had?
Yes. The cave dwellings are the oldest part.
We definitely know that Romans were here,
so we're talking about... 2,000 years old. ..2,000 years old.
They make terraces on the slopes,
so those terraces become their gardens.
And they discovered pigeon droppings as fertilisers,
to have their gardens in front of their houses.
So they took great care of the pigeons,
cos they realised how valuable the guano, the dropping, was.
The air was covered with pigeons once.
They were like clouds. There were thousands of pigeons.
Asli, it's been such a privilege staying here.
It's lovely to have had a glimpse into how life must have been.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
It's my pleasure. Thank YOU. We've just loved it.
'Time to leave Cappadocia on the midnight train.
'I just love long train journeys,
'although they can lose some of their romance.'
TRAIN HORN BLARES
Here we are. I'll just be in here.
Reading.
Eating.
Actually, I should think there's a restaurant car.
But not now, because now is about 1:45 in the morning.
This train was supposed to be...
This was supposed to be a midnight train,
or 12:30 train,
then it was going to be a 1:30 train,
and now I think it's... CLEARS HER THROAT
..quite a bit later than that.
But as I don't wear a watch, I don't really mind.
It's just the middle, middle, middle of the night.
This is the crew, loading everything up.
But Olly, Will and I do nothing at all
because we carry cameras and pretend we're working.
And so the poor, staggering crew...
Here comes Steph, bringing all the rest of my stuff,
which I was too idle to bring myself.
The reason I've got all these things
is that in all those, I've put my shoes,
all these are all the clothes I have to wear.
All that's all the sort of makeup and hair washing kit
and everything like that. Ooh, we're off.
Look at that. Isn't it divine?
There's something so exciting about travelling by train at night-time.
When we were little and leaving Malaysia,
Malaya as it was then, for the last time,
my sister and I got dressed in pyjamas
and we went to Kuala Lumpur train station
and got on the train, the midnight train.
There's a huge excitement about the train
inexorably going along, hooting as it goes...
..charging through the night. It knows exactly what's up,
and you're tucked up and fast asleep.
Goodnight.
Yeah? OK, that's gorgeous. OK, lovely.
Yeah? Quiet, everyone.
'We arrived in the world's most beautiful city
'to see where the Silk Road started.
'Santa Maria della Salute
'stands at the entrance to the Grand Canal.'
Will, if you just say, when the church is looking good,
will you say "Joanna"? And then I'll be looking at her
and then I'll turn. Perfect. Will do.
Joanna.
Was that "Joanna"? Yeah, Joanna.
Henry James called it "a grand lady
"on the threshold of her salon,"
but its creation was for a deathly serious reason.
This beautiful church was built as a thanksgiving
for deliverance of the city of Venice from the plague.
'Art, food and philosophy travelled down the Silk Road,
'but also rats, fleas and contagion,
'turning Venice into a plague hotspot.'
For over 300 years,
the bubonic plague swept across the world.
It roared along the routes of the Silk Road,
killing millions in its wake.
China lost two thirds of its population,
Europe a third, and Venice was particularly hard-hit.
And this lovely basilica was built to give thanks to God
for those who managed to survive the awful ordeal.
So, here she stands, the Santa Maria della Salute,
which means "St Mary of good health",
facing seawards, to protect the city
from any further outbreaks of this deadly disease.
It's extraordinary. That was the bubonic plague.
They were saying thanks that they had remained alive
and to try to keep the terrible disease
away from their beautiful city.
And now we're in the middle of a pandemic
which has spread across the entire world.
Who could've foreseen it?
'We showed you the outside of the church before,
'but not the fabulous interior.
'Now, in 2020, Santa Maria della Salute
'has taken on a much greater relevance.'
'Inside this glorious building
'are some stunning paintings by Titian and Tintoretto.
'Art like this had never been seen before in Europe.
'Exciting new pigments were transforming painting
'and starting a renaissance.
'Exotic colours made from crushed insects
'and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan,
'all products arriving here from the East
'via the Silk Road.
'Titian was commissioned to paint this work of St Mark,
'Patron Saint of Venice,
'so people could come and give thanks
'for their salvation from the pestilence.'
'But even Titian didn't escape,
'and in the end, he died from the plague in 1576.'
'And there's another lovely church that we didn't have time to fit in
'the first time around. It's not big,
'and it's not easy to find.
'The Chiesa di Santa Maria del Giglio.'
Oh, little narrow alleyway. Look at that.
Only as wide as this.
Bit of a whiff here. They always say a bit of a smell.
You want that. You don't want to have just a non-smelling Venice.
Santa Maria del Giglio, and I don't know where it is.
But it must be somewhere near.
SHE GASPS
Oh, look! This surely has to be it.
Look at that!
The strangest thing about this church -
it hasn't got anything to do with religion on the front of it.
There's no Santa Maria here.
There are maps, beautiful boats here.
These are merchants. This isn't...
Look at these maps here.
'It's all down to this rather grand Venetian gentleman,
'Antonio Barbaro.'
He was a hugely successful trader, great, rich merchant,
merchant of Venice, and he wanted to be remembered
and he wanted to kind of slightly re-write history.
So all his ancestors are here. Look, he's done as a Roman Emperor.
The Barbaros through the ages.
SHE GASPS
I wonder if there's a way I can get...
get to see this so I'm not absolutely inside out.
Oh, this looks promising.
Hotel Bel Sito.
SHE GASPS
Well, look at this!
Marinus Barbaro, Carolus Barbaro,
Francesco Barbaro.
And up here, the great Antonio Barbaro himself
with something quite strange on his head.
Quite strange. Even for a Venetian hat, that's strange.
Can you imagine the conceit of saying,
"When I'm dead, I'm going to leave enough money
"so that you can depict on the front of the church
"all the power and glory that I achieved,
"not only for myself, but for Venice"?
Would we do that ourselves?
Possibly.
'Our Silk Road journey has come to a glorious end in Venice.
'But next, a sizzling adventure that I've saved for last.'
'We went to Haiti in 2019 for the Hidden Caribbean series,
'and it had quite an effect on me.'
There's a skull up there.
Hello.
'I've travelled a lot in the developing world,
'but Haiti seems to have had
'more than its fair share of troubles.
'The country is rich in natural beauty
'and has such potential, but the reality is
'that it's in a shocking state.'
Look at this fabulous bay.
It breaks your heart to see so much plastic.
'Back in the 18th century,
'Haiti was at the centre of the pirate world,
'and we thought it would be an excellent idea
'to do a seafaring opening to introduce Haiti
'and a well-known Welsh pirate
'who used to frequent the waters around Ile-a-Vache.'
That's looking great, Jo. We could have a practice now.
OK.
But, I mean, when?
Right, now, now, now. Now, Jo, now.
That's incredibly difficult.
This...
BOAT CREAKS
This whole island was once the stronghold...
Now, I hate boats. That's the truth of it.
'So I said, "Can we not do this?" '
Hang on, I can't see anything. I can't get my feet round.
And our director, marvellous man in many ways...
We've got to stay in front of her.
..said, "No, no, I've researched it
"and it's going to be flat as a pancake.
"You'll just come dipping through the isthmus
"on this lovely clear water."
'Well, when we got there that day,
'the water was very rough, very naughty,
'very, very choppy. The boat...'
If you can imagine, this is the boat, sideways on.
It had nothing in the middle of it, it had nothing across it.
'It had no floor.'
Joanna, one more.
They were filming in a boat over there, going,
"Do this, do that!" I was going, "I can't hear."
I kept slipping down into the boat and trying to get up again.
Trying to hang on with my old person's hands
and gripping onto the side.
It was absolutely terrifying.
It was terrifying.
I was black and blue. I was injured.
I broke bones. Well, some of that isn't true,
but anyway, I was very afraid.
And it was terribly, terribly funny, too.
Have another go, Joanna!
And there was a Welshman called Captain Henry Morgan.
Some of you may have heard that name.
It comes on the bottle of a famous rum,
and he chose this island.
This whole island was once a stronghold
for the English privateers, or pirates,
who established themselves here
especially to torment and harass the French and Spanish
who occupied the main island.
I wouldn't mind going back soon.
'There are all sorts of myths and legends
'about where Captain Morgan's flagship HMS Oxford sank.
'We got hold of Gilbert, a local diver and ship-owner,
'who claims to have located the ship's last resting place.'
This is Port Morgan. Is this where Henry Morgan's boat sank?
Is this where HMS Oxford is?
No. No?
The Oxford is on the other side. Because he...
Come on, Gilbert. I'm not gonna... Come on, Gilbert!
I'm not gonna be 100% sure,
but what I can tell you, in 2004, after a storm,
I went diving and we discovered big pieces of timber
buried under the sea.
At the tip of the timber,
we found burning woods. SHE GASPS
I think the Oxford was the only ship that blew up...
And burnt. ..and burnt in Ile-a-Vache.
That might be it.
Gilbert, I... I want you to be...
Are you a pirate? No.
You know... Please be a Haitian pirate. No.
What is your description of a pirate?
Well, first of all, you have to have an eye patch.
No, I don't have an eye patch.
THEY CHUCKLE
You have to wear earrings like mine. I don't have.
SHE LAUGHS
And you have to have a bandana round your head.
I don't have, which I don't have.
I'm so disappointed.
THEY LAUGH
'Haiti's close neighbour, Cuba,
'has been on my radar for a long time,
'and I was hell-bent on convincing everyone concerned
'that it would be a fabulous place to visit.'
When we make these programmes, we have to go to the bosses at ITV
and say why we want to go there.
And I was so determined to get to Cuba, that I...
I... Well, I sort of took leave of my senses.
I said, "Don't you remember that fabulous Barry Manilow song,
"Copacabana? The hottest spot north of Havana."
# The hottest spot North of Havana. #
I said, "We'll be there. We can get Barry Manilow.
"He'll come down. I've met him before.
"He'll come racing down there. We'll have a great time,
"bit of bants with Barry." And it was only later that I found out
that the Copacabana was in fact a nightclub in Manhattan in New York.
But, anyway, they said yes.
So I think it was worth it, don't you?
'Music and dance seem to run in the blood of all Cubans,
'and we covered one revolutionary story
'that encapsulates that perfectly.
'Come with me to the leafy suburbs of northern Havana.'
Look at the scale of this.
In 1961, this was a country club.
Golf courses, the clubhouse.
But at the beginning of the revolution,
all the rich people who used it had to leave the country.
They were exiled, they fled, they were banished.
'In a bizarre photo opportunity intended as a dig at the West,
'Cuba's new leaders, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro,
'posed playing golf.
'As symbols of the bourgeoisie lifestyle,
'most golf courses in Cuba were ploughed up
'to provide farmland.
'But Che and Fidel had lofty ambitions for this one.'
They hatched up this extraordinary dream
of a utopian centre of culture.
For the arts, for music, for modern dance, for ballet,
for dramatic art, for sculpture.
And they would get the best architects in the world
and they would build it here, and it would be free.
It was the Communist dream that everybody should be equal,
everybody would have a chance at high culture.
And it was never finished, it was never completed.
And now, it's just left.
It's protected, but it's just...
It's like a half-finished dream.
'This place may not have come to fruition,
'but the Cuban dream of taking underprivileged kids
'into the world of ballet is a continuing success.'
'Carlos Acosta was born in Havana in 1973 into a very poor family.
'He was an overactive child,
'and his father sent him to ballet lessons
'because of the discipline, and they were free.
'A product of the Cuban National Ballet School,
'his talent saw him rise
'to become one of the most acclaimed dancers of his time.'
MINKUS' ORCHESTRAL SCORE
'This is a 2014 performance of the Royal Ballet's Don Quixote,
'where Carlos is dancing the finale of Act One.'
ORCHESTRAL FLOURISH
APPLAUSE
'He currently runs a world-famous ballet company based in Havana
'that bears his name.
'He's also established a dance academy
'that offers a three-year course
'in a particularly Cuban mixture of contemporary and classical ballet
'for some talented teenagers.
'Like so many of us, I did ballet when I was a child.
'I only did it up to the age of about... 11,
'but I loved it.'
Did I want to be a ballet dancer? I don't know.
But I wanted to be able to dance properly.
There's something about seeing dancers
that is just... heavenly.
I think they're magical. I can never stop watching dancing.
I gave it up. I wish I hadn't.
Listen, anybody watching who's younger than me,
don't give it up. Keep going.
Even if you're old, dance a bit. Dance a bit.
'On the day that we visited,
'it was busy with young hopefuls awaiting their auditions.
'Only a lucky 24 gain entry into the academy each year.'
I can remember auditioning. The horror of it at the end
is when you're told, "Thank you very much",
and you know by the fall of their voice,
they don't want you back again.
'Inside, the second year students were limbering up.'
Just notice how dancers walk.
You can't tell if somebody's a composer or a writer.
You can't tell if somebody's a painter
if you just see them walking in the street. You can tell a dancer.
It never leaves them. Look at the way they stand -
the grace, the upright stance. None of that.
Even when relaxing, they're like cats.
And it looks so effortless.
They fly, they float.
It's awesome. I love it.
You don't just get it by being flexible or feeling like it.
Slog, slog, slog.
I adore it. I adore the disciplines of ballet.
La lutte c'est la vie, "struggle is life".
That's the smart French for you.
'Who knows if we've got another Carlos Acosta
'emerging from his own academy?
'But these two rising stars are in the right place
'to benefit from his experience.'
Does Carlos Acosta come here to the school?
Si. Si? Si. Si.
Is he friendly?
Yeah, super. Muy.
In performance, in dance,
acting is very important.
Yeah.
Ballet is very important in Cuba. Si.
I shall look forward to seeing both of you
in theatres across the world.
I shall be watching.
I shall have your names written down. Leandro...
Fernandez. Leandro Fernandez.
You have difficult name.
Amisaday. Amisaday.
Rodriguez. Rodriguez.
Gracias. Muchas gracias. Thank you so much.
Thanks. Thanks.
And good luck for the performance. Yes.
'The reason we do these programmes
'and the reason why I love travelling so much is,'
above all, the people we meet.
The places are sensational, but in every country,
the people we meet is what remains with me.
And the further afield you go, the more extraordinary it is
to find that we're all the same.
We have the same aspirations,
the same longing to dance, to eat good food,
to bring our children up well.
And this has given me an opportunity of looking through
some of the places we've been to,
right from the Far East, right to ending up here in Cuba.
So thrilling and so exciting.
So, thank you for seeing my Unseen Adventures
and now what memories we share.
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