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Great Continental Railway Journeys

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Factual: Travel

Michael Portillo retraces the journeys from George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Guide.

Michael Portillo travels on the great train routes of Europe, as he retraces the journeys featured in George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

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Great Continental Railway Journeys: Series 5 - Reversions

Michael Portillo

Boundless Productions

Great Continental Railway Journeys: Series 5 - Reversions: Episode 1: Transylvania to the Black Sea Part 1

Episode 1

Episode 1: Transylvania to the Black Sea Part 1

Series 5 - Reversions

Transylvania to the Black Sea Part 1

BBC Two - Great Continental Railway Journeys, Series 5 - Reversions, Transylvania to the Black Sea Part 1

Michael Portillo ventures east through Romania.

Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide in hand, Michael Portillo ventures through Romania. He meets a bloodsucking vampire in Transylvania.

With his Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide in hand, Michael Portillo ventures east through Romania. He encounters a bloodsucking vampire in Transylvania and brown bears in the Carpathian forest before visiting a fairy tale castle with modern conveniences in Sinaia, striking oil in Ploesti.

Travelling through what was, at the turn of the 20th century, one of Europe's youngest nations, Michael sinks his teeth into a Victorian gothic best seller and uncovers an unlikely fellow fan of his Bradshaw's.

The beauty of the Carpathian mountains with their snow-clad granite peaks, gorges and lakes appears to him unchanged from their description in his 100-year-old guidebook and he is privileged to catch sight of some of the wild brown bears and wolves who continue to live in the region's last stretches of unbroken forest.

Like the railway traveller of a hundred years ago, Michael discovers a land full of surprises. In Ploesti, he helps out in the world's first oil refinery and at Sinaia, he discovers a fairy tale castle with the most modern conveniences.

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Michael Portillo travels on the great train routes of Europe.

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Great Continental Railway Journeys

Series 5 - Reversions

Episode 1: Transylvania to the Black Sea Part 1

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