Feb

12

Around The World And Back Again.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 12, 2008 |

I have a confession to make: I’m a Travel Channel addict. Lately it’s been the first channel I go to when I turn on the television, but even if it weren’t I’d be drawn there by the new series Michael Palin’s New Europe. While all the members of the Monty Python troupe (except, sadly, Graham Chapman who passed away in 1989) have had full and interesting careers, Palin stands out in my mind as the one who’s been most active, having traveled not only around the world in eighty days but from pole to pole, around the Pacific Rim, through the Himalayas, across the Sahara, and in search of both Hemingway and Vilhelm Hammershøi. His travels have been so popular that there’s even a “Palin effect”, when tourists flood an area he’s visited. And Palin hasn’t just been traveling; he’s also written the novel Hemingway’s Chair, children’s books, including The Mirrorstone, and the play The Weekend which premiered in London’s West End in 1994. After all that, it’s tempting to ask, what’s next? Possibly something no one expects.Palin’s new series takes him through an often overlooked part of Europe, in the East, through countries like Albania, Moldova, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and the Balkans. In a brief Q & A with writer David Farley, he talks about travel and the new series. Few of us will be lucky enough to travel as much as Palin has, and, surprisingly, all that travel hasn’t made him bitter or cynical. Travel really does broaden the mind, and Palin is both simple and profound when he says, “We’re all on the same planet and the more we know each other and interact together, the safer we’ll all be.”


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. maureen on February 12, 2008 6:32 pm

    And of course his travels searching for the Holy Grail are well documented!

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