Michael Palin is today as well-known for his televised adventures around the world as he is for being a Python.
His travels since the 1980s have seen him travel from Pole to Pole, around the Pacific Rim, across the Sahara Desert, through the Himalayas and, most recently, around Brazil, a country which is set to host the World Cup next month and the Olympics in 2016.
In 2006 and 2007 Michael set off on a journey around the eastern parts of his continent, Europe. He wanted to see what life is like today in the countries which, were until the early Nineties, behind the Iron Curtain.
Europe is exactly the same size as Canada but is occupied by 50 countries (including the western parts of Russia) and is inhabited by over 739 million people, speaking a wide array of languages and with a wide variety of customs and costumes.
But, until 1991 and the fall of the Iron Curtain, much of the ways of life in the eastern parts of the continent were largely unknown to the outside world.
Palin travelled through 20 Eastern European countries, and the result was seven one-hour long episodes making up his 2008 BBC documentary series Michael Palin's New Europe.
During the journey he visited the new states which formed from the break up of Yugoslavia - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. He visited the often-mocked Albania, and then Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. He travelled to Romania where he went to Transylvania and Dracula's castle, and to Romania's capital Bucharest and its Palace of the Parliament, the world's second-largest building. Hungary and Ukraine were next on his itinerary, then another set of new states - the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, part of the USSR until its break up in 1991. He visits the weird Kaliningrad Oblast, a territory which is politically part of Russia and which is inhabited by Russians but has no land connection to it (the Baltic states and Belarus are sandwiched between it and the rest of Russia). Then he visited Poland and, finally, Slovakia, Czech Republic - yet another couple of new states, both of which formed from the break up of Czechosolvakia in 1993 - and the former East Germany. which merged with West Germany in 1990 to form Germany.
Here are the first five episodes of the series (I couldn't find the last two):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s9nK2KLNvw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EyPKMyXoGg&feature=player_detailpage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0IHedA5Ru-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jE2Z8OIucO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NhUvPEjRNUo
His travels since the 1980s have seen him travel from Pole to Pole, around the Pacific Rim, across the Sahara Desert, through the Himalayas and, most recently, around Brazil, a country which is set to host the World Cup next month and the Olympics in 2016.
In 2006 and 2007 Michael set off on a journey around the eastern parts of his continent, Europe. He wanted to see what life is like today in the countries which, were until the early Nineties, behind the Iron Curtain.
Europe is exactly the same size as Canada but is occupied by 50 countries (including the western parts of Russia) and is inhabited by over 739 million people, speaking a wide array of languages and with a wide variety of customs and costumes.
But, until 1991 and the fall of the Iron Curtain, much of the ways of life in the eastern parts of the continent were largely unknown to the outside world.
Palin travelled through 20 Eastern European countries, and the result was seven one-hour long episodes making up his 2008 BBC documentary series Michael Palin's New Europe.
During the journey he visited the new states which formed from the break up of Yugoslavia - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. He visited the often-mocked Albania, and then Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. He travelled to Romania where he went to Transylvania and Dracula's castle, and to Romania's capital Bucharest and its Palace of the Parliament, the world's second-largest building. Hungary and Ukraine were next on his itinerary, then another set of new states - the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, part of the USSR until its break up in 1991. He visits the weird Kaliningrad Oblast, a territory which is politically part of Russia and which is inhabited by Russians but has no land connection to it (the Baltic states and Belarus are sandwiched between it and the rest of Russia). Then he visited Poland and, finally, Slovakia, Czech Republic - yet another couple of new states, both of which formed from the break up of Czechosolvakia in 1993 - and the former East Germany. which merged with West Germany in 1990 to form Germany.
Here are the first five episodes of the series (I couldn't find the last two):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s9nK2KLNvw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EyPKMyXoGg&feature=player_detailpage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0IHedA5Ru-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jE2Z8OIucO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NhUvPEjRNUo
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