Every Tuesday night I am glued to my television, which is a rare thing. This particular evening, there is an very interesting program on the British BBC 2. The series is called “Great British Journeys”. Every week we get to admire Nick Crane, who follows into the footsteps of (great) writers. Via their journals and/or books he tries to reconstruct their travels in Britannia. You can find the website of the program here. There is even an interactive map on the website that shows you the journeys. You can also ’sneak preview’ the episodes.
Some authors featured in the series are only known for their travel literature, others are more known for their other writings. Until now, the episodes were about the following authors: (Click on a name to learn more via an Wikipedia article.) Daniel Defoe, Thomas Pennant, William Gilpin, Celia Fiennes, William Cobbett and Gerald of Wales.
Every week, I regret that I have not seen them all. It is such an interesting and, because of presenter Crane, an amusing series. Via this series you not only get to see the beautiful English countryside; you get to learn (more) about some very interesting authors. The last two episodes, seen tonight and next week, are about John Leland and HV Morton. So tune in to BBC 2 tonight to catch the series!
The BBC also made a book about the series (of course!), which you can find here
FYI – Nicholas Crane was interviewed in Sunday’s Observer: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/sep/23/escape.mytravels
Ooh, this sounds great. I’m going to have to search my cable to see if we get this here in Los Angeles!
programmes such as you describe are interesting
and yes they catch my attention too
although like you I dont watch much TV
@ Lore: thanks for the link! He sure did some traveling!