Mysterious North • 2017 • episode "3/3" • Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise

58:37

He begins in Libya - a country well off the tourist trail and torn apart by revolution, insurgents from the so-called Islamic State and western air strikes. Simon visits the Mediterranean city of Sirte, which has been the scene of heavy fighting. Here Simon witnesses some of the worst destruction he has ever seen, with entire neighbourhoods of the city completely flattened. He also visits the remains of Leptis Magna - one of the world's best-preserved Roman cities which many feared could fall into the hands of IS - and meets the young volunteers who risked their lives to protect it. Travelling west along north Africa's Mediterranean coast, Simon arrives in Tunisia, a country that - unlike its neighbour - has long been a tourist destination. He travels to the spectacular fortress village of Chenini, where houses were carved into the mountain by the Amazigh - better known as the Berbers. Today Berbers are a small minority in Tunisia, but Simon finds one man who is keeping the traditions alive by harnessing camel power to make olive oil and excavating rock by hand to build new Berber homes. From Tunisia, Simon boards the overnight ferry to the island famous as home to the mafia, Sicily. In recent years, a government crackdown and public rebellion has substantially weakened the mafia's grip on the island, but in the countryside there are worrying signs of a comeback. The mafia is trying to take advantage of rural Sicily's population decline, but Simon soon discovers that migrants and refugees who have traveled across the Mediterranean to Europe are finding new homes in Italy's emptying villages. Simon meets three inspiring sisters who - despite constant intimidation, including the skinning of their much-loved dog - are making a defiant stand against the mafia.

3/4 • Mediterranean with Simon Reeve • 2018 • Travel

58:39

The clean minimalism of the Japanese home has been exported around the world, from modernist architecture to lifestyle stores like Muji. But the origins of this ubiquitous aesthetic evolved from a system of spiritual and philosophical values dating back centuries. James visits one of Japan's last surviving traditional wooden villages, and the 17th-century villa of Rinshunkaku, and reveals how the unique spirit of Japanese craftsmen turned joinery into an artform - creating houses without the need for nails, screws or glue. Exploring some of the traditional arts of the Japanese home, James also investigates attitudes to domestic culture in modern Japan, meeting photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki, chronicler of Japan's crowded cities and tiny apartments. Other highlights include a performance by calligrapher and artist Tomoko Kawao and a visit to the hometown of architect Terunobu Fujimori.

3/3 • The Art of Japanese Life • 2017 • Travel

51:31

Norway’s fjords are a little-known wilderness. Billions of herring darken the waters and orcas feast on the banquet. Salmon leap up waterfalls and colourful sea slugs glow in the deep. Diving below the surface, award-winning filmmaker Jan Haft reveals the extraordinary diversity of life hidden within the deep waters. It’s an intimate portrait of a unique landscape - in the dark, icy grip of winter, under the magical glow of the northern lights, and during the long polar nights of the midnight sun.

2018 • Travel

59:09

Giles Coren and Monica Galetti discover Giraffe Manor, a unique hotel where giraffes, staff and guests all coexist in a 1930s Scottish-style hunting lodge on the edge of Nairobi National Park.

3/6 • Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby • 2017 • Travel

59:11

Simon Reeve sets out on an epic journey around the island of Ireland - a place steeped in history, culture and belief, but with a complex past. Part 2: North Starting at the spectacular Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, Simon travels down the east coast to the great and rapidly changing cities of Belfast and Dublin. He ends his journey in the stunning Wicklow Mountains.

2/2 • Ireland with Simon Reeve • 2015 • Travel

46:28

The actress heads to the island of Shikoku hoping to gain a better understanding of Japanese Buddhism. She then takes a bullet train to another island - Kyushu - where she finds the Henn Na Hotel, the world's first robot hotel. At Nagasaki, she visits Shiroyama Elementary school, one of the only buildings to survive the atomic bomb dropped on the city in 1945. Joanna then travels to Sakurajima, one of the country's most active volcanoes, before heading to the islands of Okinawa where one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War was fought.

Part 3 • Joanna Lumley's Japan • 2016 • Travel