Michael Palin's New Europe (2007)
BBC

Description

Michael Palin’s latest voyage of discovery sees him venture into territory once forbidden – the new Europe previously shrouded behind the Iron Curtain. Now that the Iron Curtain has lifted and the Cold War is over, Michael can enjoy a new freedom to roam unhindered across an unexplored swathe of his own continent. From Estonia in the north to Turkey in the south, where Europe reaches out to Asia across the Bosphorus, Michael’s journey takes him through twenty countries. Some Central European, some Eastern European, some straddling continents and all utterly compelling.

Tags

Travel, Adventure, Germany, Poland, Europe, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Trans-Dniester, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic

Collected reviews and ratings

9.0 Amazon user reviews

World traveler Michael Palin, having ventured all over the world, smartly chooses Eastern Europe as the destination for this BBC special, to see, now that the iron curtain has been pulled aside, what life there is really like. Like his previous adventures, such as Pole to Pole and Around the Rim, Palin's endless fascination and infectious sense of curiosity in the places he visits and people he meets, is what really makes the show tick.
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8.0 DVD Talk | Stuart Galbraith IV

There seems to be this great misconception in the west that, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, citizens of these former Iron Curtain countries have been living happily every after, basking in their newfound freedoms. Instead, Palin finds many of these people pining away nostalgically for the good old days of totalitarianism.
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8.0 Off The Telly | Ian Jones

New Europe allowed, for the first time since Around the World in 80 Days, people and cultures to become Palin's co-stars. It was really quite restorative to watch this episode and find expositions about this or that "untamed" landscape and "towering" mountain almost non-existent. You can have too much of, well, too much.
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4.0 TVShowsOnDVD.com | Gord Lacey

We have a better understanding of the country because he speaks to people that have lived there for years, and we're able to see the country through their eyes.
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