Friday October 7, 2005
Travel programme on Europe
By ALLAN KOAY
Travel guides and shows on Europe are aplenty. So what makes Discovery Travel & Living’s Passport to Europe any different? Most importantly, what else is there left to cover about travel hotspots such as London, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona and Paris?
“We don’t really dwell on the nuts and bolts of travel, how to get there, when to go to a museum, how much to pay,” Samantha Brown, host of Passport to Europe, explains. “These are things we feel that you can go online at any time and get through due diligence.
“For me, what’s important is to show the emotional value of a destination – what makes the place important emotionally through its history, people and culture. We’ve seen so many shows about Rome and Florence and Munich, and I could go on and on, but there are things that we can show – slight cultural differences, ways of life and how they differ from our own that make a place more important than just its monuments. We bring out more of the emotional value of a destination, rather than the how-tos.”
Which is why Passport to Europe, which will take viewers to 14 destinations across Europe, will also seek to answer some age-old questions, such as how the Italian tradition of closing shop in the afternoon began, whether there really is no speed limit on the autobahn, and why the English still continue the custom of having afternoon tea. Plus, the show will reveal some secret spots and unexpected locations that few travel guides ever include. Brown also gets in touch with local experts who provide her special access to many important sites.
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Samantha Brown offers travel tips and answers questions about traditions in Europe in Passport to Europe. |
“We would see them when we’re sitting in a café and they look like really interesting people,” Brown explained. “We would say, ‘Hey, would you like to be on the show, just maybe having a coffee with me, talking about what makes Paris really special?’ So we get to hear it from their mouths, get a sense of what they do and how that’s different.”
In Florence, Italy, Brown discovers a great hotel in the centre of the city, and also finds a perfect spot to escape the crowds. In Paris, France, she stays in an apartment in the Latin Quarter, and visits the street markets, experiencing the haute couture with the help of a personal shopper.
In Rome, Italy, Brown will show viewers where to have true Roman coffee, how to avoid three-hour queues at the city’s popular attractions, and where to enjoy Rome’s wild nightlife.
Asked whether there are similarities between the European cities she visited or just distinct differences, Brown replied: “I was surprised at how things are becoming very similar. All European cities, the big ones, seem to have the same designer brand shops. Starbucks comes to mind, and it’s sort of disappointing in a way.”
Asked if she has had any shocking experiences while in Europe, Brown said the thing that had her literally agape was the fact that no one in Austria gives two hoots about The Sound of Music, although that musical was set there. In fact, the film was only shown on Austrian TV for the very first time in 2001.
“I just thought that was amazing,” said Brown. “But I think one of the most pleasant surprises that my crew and I encountered was the lack of anti-Americanism. This is something that we were sort of cautious about. We were wondering how we would be perceived. The war is ongoing and we started travelling right after the Abu Ghraib scandal.”
But were there extra security concerns for her especially after the bombings in Madrid and London?
“There hasn’t been,” Brown replied. “I myself live 10 blocks from the World Trade Centre, so the idea of a major terrorism attack being in my neighbourhood doesn’t scare me at all from travelling anywhere in the world. I’m not changing anything I do because of terrorism because it happened literally outside my doorstep.
“When you go into certain areas now, you have to catalogue exactly where you’ll be at every time, so the insurance provider knows. So there’s a lot of logistics that go into it, but I myself would never be deterred.”
The 14-episode Passport to Europe airs every Thursday, 10.30pm, on Astro’s Discovery Channel. The first episode, Rome, Italy, encores today at 10.30am. Every episode is repeated the following day at 10.30am.
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