Series 8
20 episodes · 2025
Bradshaw's 1913 Guide in hand, Michael Portillo embarks on another rail journey.
1Pula to Pazin
Michael Portillo mounts a valiant defence against fierce latter-day Roman gladiators in Pula's amphitheatre as he begins a journey across the Balkan countries of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2Buzet to Pag
Ably assisted by Lila, an expert labrador, Michael Portillo hunts for truffles in the Istrian countryside near the hilltop town of Buzet.
3Knin to Split
Michael Portillo’s railway adventure reaches the Dalmatian coastal city of Zadar, once an important Venetian trading hub and still a centre for the production of Maraschino cherry liqueur.
4Sarajevo
In Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, Michael Portillo traces the fateful last journey in 1914 of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.
5Mostar to Dubrovnik
Michael Portillo enjoys a journey on the historic line from Sarajevo to Mostar, descending 600 metres through the Dinaric Alps, reflecting on the divisions which tour apart the old Yugoslavia.
6Bergen to Flåm
Michael Portillo embarks on a Scandinavian railway adventure from the Norwegian port of Bergen to the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
7Myrdal to Heddal
Michael Portillo’s rail journey continues on the Bergen Line, heading towards the Norwegian capital of Oslo, with its fine modernist architecture and 19th-century parliament building.
8Larvik to Holstebro
Michael’s saga resumes in Larvik on Norway’s southern coast, where he investigates the city’s prized natural resource, a distinctive blue rock named larvikite.
9Aarhus to Odense
Michael Portillo’s Scandinavian rail adventure reaches Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, an architectural playground with dazzling contemporary buildings set alongside historic half-timbered houses.
10Roskilde to Copenhagen
Michael Portillo concludes his epic rail journey across Norway and Denmark, crossing an 18-kilometre box girder bridge between the islands of Funen and Zealand, known as the Great Belt Bridge.
11Maienfeld to the Rhine Gorge
Michael Portillo is transported 150 years back in time to the tiny Alpine village home of Switzerland’s most famous child, Heidi, and heads to the Rhine Gorge, also known as the Swiss Grand Canyon.
12Sedrun to Schwyz
Michael Portillo ventures into the bowels of an immense hydroelectric dam to learn how the Swiss use their mountainous environment to power the country.
13Zurich
In Zurich, Michael has a brush with the absurd in the anarchic paintings of the Dadaists and visits the Grossmunster Church to learn about the rebellious pastor at the centre of the Swiss Reformation.
14Rotkreuz to Brienz
Michael Portillo scales the Swiss Alps on one of the the steepest cog railways in the world and visits the 19th-century fairy-tale Grand Hotel Giessbach.
15Zweisimmen to Lausanne
Aboard the Golden Pass Express, Michael Portillo wends his way in style down steep mountainsides from Interlaken to the Swiss Riviera. In Lausanne, he contends with a knife-wielding robotic arm.
16Nantes to Lorient
Michael Portillo’s rail travels take him to the north west corner of France, where he explores the beautiful regions of Brittany and Normandy and learns of their connections with Great Britain.
17Brest to St Brieuc
Michael Portillo’s railway journey reaches the naval port of Brest, home to France’s oceanographic fleet. He also learns how to make a sweet, buttery Breton cake called kouign-amann.
18Rennes to Mont Saint-Michel
Michael Portillo’s railway adventure reaches Rennes, capital of Brittany. At the Lycee Emile Zola, he hears how the school was used as a military court for the second trial of Alfred Dreyfus.
19Bayeux to Argentan
In Bayeux, Michael Portillo admires the Bayeux Tapestry, the 70-metre-long work of art commissioned to record William the Conqueror's conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
20Lisieux to Givernyfinale
In the apple orchards of the Calvados region, Michael Portillo discovers how the classic digestif has been distilled since 1865 at the Pierre Huet estate.
