The BEST episodes directed by Roger Mills
#1 - From Pole to Pole
Michael Palin's New Europe - Season 1 - Episode 6
Countries visited: Poland Arriving in Gdansk via canal, Michael meets former electrician Lech Walesa who formed 'Solidarity', Poland's first independent trade union, which led to the demise of communism in that country. Heading to Warsaw he visits the Palace of Culture, Stalin's controversial gift to Varsovians. Michael then makes his own personal pilgrimage to Auschwitz.
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Michael Palin's New Europe - Season 1 - Episode 4
Countries visited: Hungary, Ukraine Michael travels by road, rail and river through Hungary and the Ukraine, ending in the Black Sea resort of Yalta. Along the way he visits Budapest's 'House of Terror', a National Park in Hortobagy, an area which Attila the Hunwas reputed to have rampaged across, and ends up meeting a Leeds market trader who married the Ukranian prime minister's daughter.
#3 - Baltic Summer
Michael Palin's New Europe - Season 1 - Episode 5
Countries visited: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia Michael travels from Tallinn in the north, through Latvia, to Lithuania in the south, sailing into the Baltic from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, formerly East Prussia. In Estonia he visits a pyramid house and samples the medicinal properties of leeches. In Latvia he visits one of the most secretive places of the Communist-era, the astronomical telescope.
#4 - A Line in the Sand
Sahara with Michael Palin - Season 1 - Episode 1
Michael lands at Tangier in Morocco after crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, and passes through the High Atlas mountains after brief stops in Fez and Marrakesh. From here, the Sahawari people help him to negotiate the harsh, rugged terrain and guide him south to the Mauritanian border.
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#5 - Dire Straits
Sahara with Michael Palin - Season 1 - Episode 4
Michael arrives at the border of Niger and Algeria, the most desolate crossing, and then turning north Michael passes through the mountains of the Hoggar massif before pausing in the oil and gas fields of central Algeria. Then onto Libya to attend the very last reunion of the Desert Rats of Tobruk, before turning west along the North Coast past deserted classical sites at Apollonia, Cyrene and Leptis Magna.
#6 - Absolute Desert
Sahara with Michael Palin - Season 1 - Episode 3
Michael reaches Timbuktu along with a camel train carrying the giant salt blocks that made the city one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning up until the 16th century. He wanders through the rubble that is 21st century Timbuktu to find the Imam who shows him original astronomical textbooks that predate Galileo's discoveries by 200 years.
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#7 - Destination Timbuktu
Sahara with Michael Palin - Season 1 - Episode 2
After a brief stopover in cosmopolitan Senegal, Michael endures two nights aboard the train to Bamako, where he meets up with the renowned kora player Toumani Diabete. Meanwhile, the Dogon people of West Africa introduce Michael to some of their origin myths, and a trip down the River Niger turns out to be far from plain sailing.
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