Coast ventures out to the astonishing man-made shoreline of the Netherlands.
Nick Crane explores how ingenious Dutch engineers created massive coastal defences like no others on earth following the great North Sea flood in 1953 which killed thousands of people in the Netherlands and Britain.
Nick also discovers how, during the Second World War, traitors from the British Indian Army took part in the Nazi occupation of the tiny isle of Texel. This remarkable remote outpost in the far north of the Netherlands was later the unlikely site for the last battle in Europe of the Second World War; Nick investigates how the island fortress of Texel was torn apart by a murderous fight to the death between Soviet and Nazi soldiers in April 1945.
Coast newcomer, historian Tessa Dunlop, is on the trail of 'Tulipmania', the extraordinary trade in tulip bulbs that's said to have nearly bankrupted the Dutch nation nearly 400 years ago. Tessa seeks the truth behind this cautionary tale of 'Bloom and Bust' that still haunts today's traders.
Mark Horton reveals the age old skills that have made the Dutch the Grand Masters at creating new living space from the sea. Mark explores the greatest land grab scheme of all, an audacious 40 year plan to wall off the sea and drain away the water from an area bigger than Greater London.
Adam Henson, himself a farmer, investigates why cows from the coastal plains of the northern Netherlands became the most sought after milk producers in the world, and one of the most familiar sights in the British countryside. Adam discovers how in the 19th century, when British farmers went shopping for Dutch cows, these 'two-tone' Friesian cattle would transform Britain's green and pleasant pastures into a sea of black and white.
Miranda Krestovnikoff experiences how the Dutch delight in devouring raw herring as a sea side snack. Miranda also explores a strange man-made island that's become a natural paradise of shifting sand and home to migrating birds in the most remote part of the Netherlands. Show less