Great Continental Railway Journeys (2012–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Berlin to the Rhein - full transcript
I'm embarking
on a new railway adventure
that will take me
across the heart of Europe.
I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's
Continental Railway Guide,
dated 1913, which opened up
an exotic world of foreign travel
for the British tourist.
It told travellers where to go,
what to see and how to navigate
the thousands of miles of tracks
criss-crossing the continent.
Now, a century later,
I'm using my copy to reveal an era
of great optimism and energy,
where technology, industry, science
and the arts were flourishing.
I want to rediscover that lost
Europe that in 1913 couldn't know
that its way of life would shortly
be swept aside by the advent of war.
Steered by my 1913 railway guide,
I'm journeying across prosperous
pre-war Europe.
This leg takes me
to Imperial Germany, whose emperor,
Queen Victoria's grandson
Kaiser Wilhelm II,
would soon take family feuding
to a tragic new level.
So the two countries
that went to war
were ruled over by first cousins?
Yes.
I'll take to the skies on a train...
I can see into everybody's window,
I can see into everybody's house.
..sample local cuisine...
When on the Rhine,
eat as Rhinelanders do.
'..appreciate local smells...'
That IS very, very strong.
..meet local characters...
Hello, my beauty! Nice to meet you!
'..and enjoy the fruits
of its ancient vineyards.'
I like it very much.
My journey begins in the capital,
Berlin,
heads west to the city of Magdeburg
and the picturesque Harz Mountains.
I'll then discover the majesty
of Hanover, from where I'll continue
to Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley
at Essen,
followed then by the Gothic beauty
of Cologne.
I'll head towards Koblenz,
learning what role the railways
played in the First World War,
before joining the tourist trail
down the castle-studded banks
of the River Rhine.
In 1913, the so-called German Empire
was then a young country,
having been brought together
just a few decades before
out of a group
of formerly independent states.
My Bradshaw's tells me that the
German Empire consists of 25 states
and the Imperial territory
of Alsace-Lorraine,
and it then lists them
in order of magnitude -
beginning, of course, with Prussia -
and I'm headed now
for its glittering capital, Berlin.
I'm arriving
at Berlin's Hauptbahnhof,
a spectacular product of the new,
unified Germany.
This five-tiered
glass and steel structure
opened in 2006
at a cost of £480 million
to provide travellers with
a one-stop connection north to south
and, more symbolically,
East to West.
I love Berlin's
new main railway station,
its two crystal tunnels
intersecting at this point.
It's an aesthetic
and technological triumph,
and yet,
despite being entirely modern,
it's reminiscent of Victorian
railway stations
made of cast iron and glass.
In 1913, Germany's engineering
and industrial prowess
was being nurtured by
its vehemently nationalist emperor.
Kaiser Wilhelm was obsessed
with bettering the two major powers
of the previous century.
He aimed for a navy
to emulate Britain's,
and Berlin, his capital,
was fast rivalling Paris.
"Berlin," asserts my Bradshaw's,
"is THE most modern
of the great cities of Europe.
"Broad streets, handsome buildings,
spacious squares and open places
"rendered more attractive
by trees and statues."
And at a time when Britain was
suffering from industrial strife,
turmoil in Ireland and suffragette
outrages, it adds, perhaps
a little enviously, "Cleanliness
and order are everywhere."
I'm heading to the heart
of Wilhelm's Imperial Berlin
and probably the city's
best-known landmark.
In 1913, the Brandenburg Gate would
have beckoned visitors towards
the Kaiser's Palace.
But after the Second World War,
it symbolically barred passage
between communist East
and capitalist West Germany.
'Matt Robinson is my guide.'
Why is the Brandenburg Gate such
an important symbol for Germany?
It was the gate used by the king,
who had come from the royal district
further down Unter Den Linden
passing through to the Tiergarten,
and this is where Germans came
to celebrate in 1871
when Germany became Germany.
It's where the German soldiers
marched back through in December 1918
following the armistice in November,
the end of the First World War.
What happened to the Brandenburg
Gate during the Cold War?
Between 1961 and 1989,
the Brandenburg Gate
was in the death strip
of the Berlin Wall.
This is the area in between
the two walls that existed.
This is the area
where East German border guards
were shooting people
as traitors to the state
as they tried to escape to the West.
The East Germans never referred
to the Berlin Wall
as the Berlin Wall that they built
to stop East Germans from leaving.
It was always the
"anti-fascist protection barrier"
to stop the fascists in the West
from getting to the East
and corrupting
this East German socialist paradise.
It's quite a thought, isn't it?
A bit small, this one.
'For all its melancholy history, the
Gate is now a tourist attraction.
'But I'm juggling a busy schedule
and need to move on.'
My Bradshaw's says
of the railway lines
that they're "probably more useful
for residents than for tourists,
"whose convenience is better served
by the trams." Can we take a tram?
We can. There are none around here
but we can certainly head
further into the east. Very good.
In the decades before
my 1913 guidebook was published,
the great European powers
were in a race
for technological supremacy.
And when the world's first
electric tram ran in Berlin in 1881,
the city took a step ahead
of its rivals.
So, historically, the trams have
been pretty important in Berlin?
As Berlin developed in the late 1800s
as the Imperial capital
of Germany, there was a necessity
to get workers to the factories
in the central parts of the city.
Thus, the public transportation
network developed
to become
one of the largest in the country.
In fact, to this day
it's still the largest in Germany.
How big did this network become?
By the late 1920s, it was massive.
There was some 600 kilometres
of track throughout the city,
90 different lines, in fact,
in Berlin alone.
1913 Germany was both wealthy
and learned.
To speed industrial
and military development,
Wilhelm's government gave
unprecedented financial support
to universities
and research institutes.
In another success for the Kaiser,
the world's centre
of science and technology shifted
from Britain and France to Berlin.
I've come to the Archenhold
Observatory in search of a genius
who was developing theories
at the time my guidebook was written
that were to change science
for ever.
Dr Felix Luhning
is head of astronomy at Archenhold,
'in the southeast of the city.'
Hello, Felix. Hello, Michael.
My guidebook tells me that Berlin's
scientific institutions
are of worldwide renown.
Was it important to the Kaiser, the
German Reich, to promote science?
Yes. It was a matter of reputation
and it was also a matter of, um,
well, so to speak,
support for big business.
In 1879, the centrepiece
of Berlin's Trade Fair
was the world's first
electric railway.
Then, the city amazed visitors
again by unveiling
a huge and powerful telescope -
the Treptow.
Well, it's absolutely the biggest
telescope that I'VE ever seen.
When was it built and how big is it?
Well, it was built in 1896
and it is the longest telescope
of the world, 21 metres' focus.
Such a telescope at the end
of the 19th century must have
attracted visitors from far
and wide. Yes, that's right.
The observatory
was crowded with people.
Everybody was curious about what
to see in this big telescope.
Can we see it operating?
Yes, of course.
Very simple, just push the button.
'With a magnification factor of 210,
the telescope provides
'detailed observations
of the moon and planets.
'But just after my 1913 guidebook
was written, an event
'at the Archenhold Observatory had
an even bigger impact on science.'
In 1915, the most influential
scientist of the century,
Albert Einstein,
'stunned the world with his
first-ever speech on relativity.'
So this is where Albert Einstein
gave his lecture? Yes.
Imagine this hall filled
with visitors and reporters
writing down articles.
Born in Germany in 1879,
Einstein developed
his general theory of relativity
to explain the Newtonian mystery
of gravity.
And what did it change?
It changed everything.
It changed the science,
it changed astronomy,
it changed also nuclear physics
and it changed cosmology.
Einstein's approach
to science was radical,
and his Nobel Prize in 1921
made him a genius celebrity.
But he could explain his complex
ideas in amusing layman's terms.
Einstein apparently joked that the
theory of relativity meant
two hours spent with a beautiful
girl passed in a minute,
and a minute spent on a hot stove
seemed like two hours.
But presumably what he was
really saying was
that time itself is elastic,
that it is relative.
Yes. He showed that it depended
on how you are moving.
The faster you're moving,
the slower time goes by for you.
An avowed pacifist, Einstein devised
the world-famous equation "E=mc2",
which confirmed the relationship
between mass and energy -
an insight necessary
to develop the atomic bomb.
A consequence that made him
uncomfortable in later life.
I believe that railways played
an important part in his theory.
Yes, because railways are a perfect
example for the relativity
of movements. They are a perfect
example for a constant moving system.
Using models,
Einstein explained how a train
travelling along the horizon will
seem to move at a much slower speed
than one rushing past you
on a platform.
But they are, in fact,
going at the same speed.
Einstein showed that things
can't be regarded separately.
Time, mass and space
are connected together.
Felix, I don't think
I'll ever think the same way
about a railway journey again.
Thank you.
To leave Berlin,
I'm heading for Charlottenburg
in the west of the city.
The affluent suburb is still home
to an ornate palace and gardens
which my 1913 guidebook notes
"contains the mausoleum of the
Kaiser's late mother and father."
But I'm destined
for more rural landscapes
..Heute? Heute, ja.
26.60. Danke.
Danke, auf Wiedersehen.
I'm travelling via Magdeburg to the
natural beauties of Saxony-Anhalt,
a state steeped in legend.
My Bradshaw's Guide tells me
that German scenery
"is generally pleasing and varied,
"and there are many pretty mountain
chains of moderate elevation."
I'm headed for the Harz Mountains,
which Edwardian travellers enjoyed
for the beautiful fresh air
and the stunning views.
The Harz Mountains extend
for 100 kilometres.
Maximising
its engineering resources,
Germany laid three railways here
in the late 19th century,
primarily to transport
the range's rich minerals.
When the third scaled the mountain's
tallest peak, the Brocken,
it became the country's longest and
most scenic narrow-gauge railway.
And I'm excited to ride it
because it runs on steam.
My Bradshaw's tells me that
the Brocken is "3,145 feet high,
"the highest summit
of the Harz Mountains."
What better way to get there than
on this delightful steam railway?
This must be one of the great
train rides in Europe.
The steam engine curling ahead,
the train weaving between the trees
as we make our way, panting,
towards the summit of the Brocken.
Was ist das?
Waldbeer. Mm-hm.
Schlehe mit Rum.
Ah-ha, Schlehe mit Rum. Ja.
Mm-hmm. Something with rum.
Ja, das geht.
Very attractive with their pictures
of the locomotives. Three euro.
Danke, danke.
Sehr gut! Good for the Herz?
Ja. Good for the heart?
Ja, sehr gut.
I believe it. Thank you. Mm.
Good for the heart
in the Harz Mountain. Get it?
The Harz Mountains
are famous in German folklore.
Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty
and Little Red Riding Hood
are all stories thought
to have emanated from here.
But the Brocken is most famous for a
pivotal scene in German literature.
Set on a night of spooks similar
to Halloween - called Walpurgis -
in Faust,
an 18th-century play by Goethe,
witches worship the devil
on this peak,
and evidently, even now,
the odd one may be attracted here.
Hello, my beauty. Hello,
nice to meet you! My beauty, indeed!
On the mountain! Why are you dressed
as a witch? Warum Hexe?
Hier ist der Brocken, der Brocken...
This is the Brocken mountain.
..auf dem Gipfel
um dem Teufel auf den Arsch zu kussen
und holen sich ihre Hexenkraft.
SHE LAUGHS
Da sind wir immer dabei!
I don't understand everything,
but I think she's telling me
that for ten years she's been coming
here, and on the Brocken Mountain,
the witches practise witchcraft
on Walpurgis Night.
Walpurgis Night, yes.
Is that right? Yes!
Oh! Do Hexe like a drink?
Yes. Oh, yes!
MICHAEL LAUGHS
Woo!
Oh!
Mm, that's the way to do it, isn't
it? Wow, super! It's for you! Ja.
Did you leave any?! Cheers!
Cheers! Mmm!
Sehr gut.
Auf Wiedersehen!
..Sehr gut, ja!
In 1913, lured by the Brocken's
scenery and witches,
at least 50,000 tourists
trekked to the summit.
Then, as now, it was traditional to
make the 1,142-metre ascent on foot.
We walked from... Torfhaus.
Torfhaus. Ah-ha!
It's seven kilometres.
And how long has that taken you?
12 o'clock. 12 o'clock you set out.
2.30 now, so two hours and twenty
minutes. Ja. Very good. Healthy! Ja.
Hello, sir. Hello, sir.
Have you walked a long way?
Oh, not a long way. From Schriker.
And how long has that taken you?
Oh, six kilometres, about two hours.
Do you come up the Brocken
very often? No, it's the first time.
Really? Yes. Congratulations!
Thank you.
Leaving the natural beauty
of the Harz Mountains behind,
I'm bound for my next destination -
Hanover.
The city may help me to understand
why Kaiser Wilhelm was so driven
by a sense of rivalry with Britain
to the West and Russia to the East.
Bradshaw's tells me
that "mid-Europe time,
"one hour in advance
of Greenwich Time,
"is observed on all lines
in Germany.
"The fares are less than in most
other parts of the continent,
"averaging one and two-fifths pence
per mile, first class,"
which shows the limitations of using
a guidebook 100 years old.
"Railway carriages in Germany
are clean and comfortable,"
so some things
haven't changed at all.
With its beautiful buildings
and highly admired culture,
Hanover, a formerly independent
German kingdom which had become
a province of Prussia, was a magnet
for early 20th-century
British travellers
with an interest in royalty.
On my British railway journeys,
I have often followed
in the footsteps of Queen Victoria.
In Hanover, my Bradshaw's draws my
attention to Schloss Herrenhausen,
where George I and George II lived.
So, extraordinarily,
here in the heart of Germany,
I find myself close to the origins
of Queen Victoria, who was our last
monarch in the line of Hanover.
I've made my way
to the impressive Royal Palace
and botanical gardens
of Herrenhausen to find out more
from Petra Kiel-Heurich,
a local guide.
Petra. Hello.
Hello. May we go in? Of course.
Petra, how did it come to be
that George I, a German,
became the King of England?
You know, he was in line
to the throne, number 58, 59,
but, you know, he was a Protestant,
and all the other pretenders
were Catholics,
and so the English didn't want
to have any Catholic on the throne.
So they took George I from Hanover
as their king in London.
Cos the thing that really mattered
was that he wasn't a Catholic,
so that overrode his disadvantage
of being a German?
Amazingly enough, yes.
After Duke Ernest Augustus
of Hanover married Sophia,
granddaughter
of Britain's King James I,
the British Act of Settlement,
banning Catholics from the throne,
designated Sophia heiress
to the British crown.
But after she died in 1714,
her son, George,
became the first of five monarchs to
rule over both Hanover and Britain.
I suppose when George I became king,
he had to learn a new language.
He didn't speak English,
not a single word,
so the English people
couldn't believe that somebody
was coming from Germany
who was not even able to communicate.
So he NEVER learned English?
No, he did not.
He was the only English king who
was buried outside of Great Britain.
I have a guidebook here from 1913...
Mm-hm.
So what was the relationship
between the British Royal Family
and the German royalty
in that period?
You know,
both monarchs were cousins.
Both were grandsons
from Queen Victoria,
and here in Germany,
it was Emperor William II,
and in England it was George V.
So the two countries
that went to war
the year after my guidebook
was written
were ruled over by first cousins?
Yes, first cousins.
And they met together
with the Tsar from Russia.
It was Nicholas II,
and all three met at the marriage
of the Emperor's daughter
on the 24th May 1913.
The very time of my guidebook.
Yeah. It was the last big event
before the First World War started
one year later.
The Tsar was also related
to the British Royal Family. Yeah.
He was another cousin,
so they were three.
So George V, the Kaiser and
the Tsar were all cousins? Mm-hm.
Amazing. And all involved
in the war. Ja. One year later.
History weighs heavily in this city.
The First World War was not,
as hoped, the war to end all wars.
During the Second World War,
almost all of majestic Hanover
was obliterated by Allied bombing.
After the conflict, some buildings
were rebuilt from the rubble,
including my hotel for the night.
According to Bradshaw's, "German
hotels are second to the Swiss,
"the best in the world. The cuisine
is inferior only to the French,
"and the restaurants, superior."
Kastens Hotel is recommended
because it has central heating,
and an advertisement tells me it has
a motor garage and a restaurant.
Sounds like the place for me.
Kastens has served visitors
to Hanover for almost 160 years,
and I want to find out
how the hotel has changed
since my guidebook recommended it
in 1913.
Good evening. Hello, good evening.
I'm using a guidebook from 1913.
What was the hotel like then?
Well, it was like it is now,
the best hotel in town,
and a lot of aristocrats stayed here
and many travellers from England.
And what happened to the hotel
in World War II?
Hanover was bombed
and the hotel was also hit.
It was completely destroyed and the
owning family then just rebuilt it
and we had our first rooms ready
for the first International Fair
in 1947.
A wonderful effort.
I'm looking forward to staying here.
Which room am I in?
Your room number is 119 on the first
floor. Enjoy your stay with us.
Thank you, good night. Good night.
Auf Wiedersehen.
I'm bound next for the Ruhr Valley.
In 1913, it was both Germany's
industrial heartland
and the Kaiser's arsenal.
I'll then push south to Cologne,
detour east to experience
a technological marvel in Wuppertal,
before journeying to the Rhineland
to discover the river,
the vineyards that adorn its banks
and the cultural roots
of German nationalism.
Germany, in common with France
and Spain and Italy
and Japan, for that matter,
has a network of high-speed trains.
They're beautiful, they're silver,
they're called ICE,
and that spells "cool".
HE BLOWS WHISTLE
TRAIN HORN BLASTS
Guten Morgen. Is this your German
breakfast? Yeah. Wow! This looks...
Beer, at this time of the day?
It's always good!
Always good, beer?
Are you celebrating, gentlemen?
Is it a special occasion?
We have a trip to Dusseldorf.
Once a year, we have a trip
to a city, in this case Dusseldorf.
Last time we were in Munich
for Oktoberfest, and so on.
And what is that you're eating,
what is this?
Bratwurst. Bratwurst?
Are those gherkins? Gurke.
You call them...?
Gurke. Gurke? Gurke, gherkins.
Oh, wow! You've very, very kind.
Thank you very much indeed.
..Sauerkraut? Guten Appetit, hmm?
Mmm!
Sehr gut. It's good, yes? Mm.
I can safely say
this is the earliest in the morning
that I have ever eaten a gherkin.
MEN LAUGH
It's good, it's good.
THEY CHATTER IN GERMAN
Man cannot live by gherkin alone.
Time for my own breakfast.
Danke. You're welcome. Danke.
I've left behind
the elegant palaces of Hanover
and I'm heading for the traditional
industrial heartland of Germany,
the Rhineland-Westphalia
coal district,
which my Bradshaw's describes
as "32 miles in length
"and 5 to 14 miles wide.
"One of the most productive
coalfields in the world.
"The apparently never-ending
sequence of town after town
"with the innumerable chimneys
in all directions
"testify to an enormous activity."
By the time my guidebook was written
in 1913,
Germany had overtaken Britain
in industrial production.
Having been whisked along
on the flagship of German railways,
I need to change here at Dortmund
onto a slower train
bound for my next destination,
Essen.
Since the 18th century, the
Ruhr Valley has been synonymous
with the essential ingredients of
industrialisation - coal and steel.
As Wilhelm II settled on the throne,
the pits and foundries of the Ruhr
were expanded so fast
that Essen's population
almost quadrupled
between 1890 and 1910.
This was industrialisation
on an unparalleled scale.
The collieries and steelworks
may have turned the valley
into something resembling
Dante's Inferno,
but they were the Kaiser's
powerhouse, and in the early years
of the 20th century,
Germany's army was war-ready.
Rebuilt in 1932,
the Zollverein Coal Mine
was once the world's
most modern and productive.
It closed in the 1980s and is now
a UNESCO World Heritage Site
and cultural centre.
'Christian Shroeder is a curator.'
Christian, how good to see you.
Welcome. Nice to meet you.
It's good to see you.
This is a beautiful mine museum.
When did mining begin
in the Essen area?
Around about 1830.
All the buildings you can see
all around are much younger.
They are from 1920 to 1932.
Mining here became very extensive.
Oh, yeah.
The Ruhr area used to be
Europe's biggest industrial area.
We used to cook iron and steel
on 2,800 square kilometres.
We used to have
more than 700 big coal mines.
And thousands of miles of tunnels?
Oh, yeah, thousands of them.
Now, this mineshaft
is not only very impressive,
it's architecturally beautiful.
That's because the two young
architects who built this
were inspired
by Bauhaus architecture.
It was the functional Cubism
of those days.
May we take a look around?
Oh, sure, here we go.
We're getting a wonderful view
of the plant now.
Oh, yeah, we will. And
it's going to get better and better.
It's an amazing view. Tell me, at
the beginning of the 20th century,
what would we have been able to see
from here?
At the beginning of the 20th century,
skies would've been covered with dust
and the streets
would have been covered in ashes.
The horizon would have been crammed
with chimneys,
blast furnaces,
coking plants, steel mills,
all this, and today it's a
huge green landscape, as you can see.
Yeah, my Bradshaw's guide tells me
about the chimneys extending
to the horizon and also says
that Krupp's huge works are here.
Where was Krupp's?
Krupp's was in this direction
at the other side of the city centre.
And Krupp company used to be the
biggest steel company here in Essen.
Essen is associated
with the family Krupp
and Krupp is always associated
with Essen.
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it,
that my English Bradshaw's guide
in 1913 says, "Krupp" -
it doesn't have to say steel,
Krupp MEANT steel.
Yes. It's a legend in Germany -
Krupp.
He was one of the first
industrial pioneers
and he made German steel
what it became later on.
He was a maniac in cooking steel.
He slept in his workshop,
he lived in his workshop -
all he was doing was cooking steel
24 hours a day.
In 1852, industrialist Alfred Krupp
invented the seamless steel railway
tyre which made him his fortune.
His passion for steel
and profit then propelled him
into the arms business.
By the time of his death,
he had armed 46 nations,
and in the run-up
to the First World War,
his company would arm Germany,
earning Krupp the moniker
the Arsenal of the Reich.
Modern Germany is
a peace-loving country.
The Ruhr's chimneys
have been felled.
Zollverein now pursues
seams of culture rather than coal.
Bravo!
Thank you, that was wonderful.
Back to Essen Central to catch a
connection to my next destination -
Cologne.
No good. My German's not up to it.
I'll stick to my Bradshaw's.
Bradshaw's tells me that my next
destination, Cologne,
lies on the left bank of the River
Rhine. "It's an imperial fortress,
"the largest town of the Rhine
Provinces of Prussia."
Having thrown off the rust and dust
of the Ruhr in the 19th and 20th
centuries,
I'm looking forward to seeing
the wonderful medieval cathedral
in Cologne.
ARRIVAL ANNOUNCEMENT ON TRAIN'S PA
The oldest large town in Germany,
Cologne sits astride
the mighty Rhine.
With six million visitors a year,
its Cathedral is Germany's most
popular place of interest.
Its towers,
added in the 19th century
have dominated the city's skyline
since their completion in 1880.
The way they built the railway
next to the cathedral in Cologne
means that the view you get
on leaving this station
must have very few rivals
anywhere in Europe.
In 1164, Archbishop Rainald
von Dassel brought to Cologne
from the vanquished city of Milan
what he and the devout believed
to be the remains of the Three
Kings, who visited the baby Jesus.
The Gothic cathedral was a fittingly
grand building
that impressed pilgrims
paying homage to the Magi.
Measuring
almost 8,000 square metres,
with space for 4,000 worshippers
it's one of Germany's true
architectural glories.
I'm hugely impressed
by the cathedral
which my Bradshaw's tells me
"is sometimes described as
the most magnificent Gothic edifice
in the world."
I now want to do something which, in
my guide, comes highly recommended -
a visit to Johann Maria Farina at
4 Julich-Platz for Eau de Cologne.
In the 18th century,
perfume was big business
because filthy, sewerless cities
led to foul odours,
whilst polluted water discouraged
regular ablutions.
In Cologne, Italian immigrant
Johann Maria Farina
transformed the industry
by distilling pure alcohol
to produce lighter,
less sticky,
and more fragrant perfumes.
His signature scent
was Eau de Cologne.
Johann Maria Farina, I presume.
Ah, buongiorno.
Benvenuti alla mia casa.
Very good to see you.
So, who was Johann Maria Farina?
He basically was an Italian
perfume-maker who came to Cologne
about 300 years ago,
and he invented a perfume
which he then called Eau de Cologne.
This perfume created by an Italian
in Germany,
did it still have a very strong
Italian accent to it?
It did, yes. Basically, Farina must
have missed his native land of Italy,
so he tried to create a perfume
which reminded him of Italy.
You need to understand
that, in his days,
Cologne was a very smelly city.
The city altogether was,
and also the people themselves
didn't really wash
because they were afraid
the water would spread diseases
and all sorts.
Did it become an immediate success?
Yes, it did, very, very soon, yes.
Because it was so different to other
perfumes which were there before.
Basically, what you got were
very heavy-smelling perfumes.
Then it was all of a sudden
a very light, refreshing perfume.
Was it for men or for women?
Both. Unisex, it was.
What sort of people were able to buy
perfume in those days?
Not many.
It was very, very expensive.
In today's terms,
maybe 2,000 euro per bottle.
What sorts of people were
the clients of Eau de Cologne?
In Cologne, you've got famous
Prince Elector Clemens August
who bought 40 bottles in a month.
And also French emperor Napoleon used
one bottle a day for private purpose.
And Napoleon actually had himself
made special boots,
into the back of which he could hide
one bottle of Eau de Cologne.
So that
even when he was sitting on a horse
he could secretly use Eau de Cologne.
You've lots of intriguing bottles
here. Any that I can sniff?
Yeah, sure.
This, for example, is a heavy smell.
Something people used
before Farina came to Cologne.
Be careful. Just do a bit of hand
waving, because it is very strong.
That IS very, very strong.
So, if I mix that
with body odour and sewage...
And not washing for a couple
of months,
then you can imagine what people
smelled like - horrible!
This is a light fragrance.
Something people would not have had
before the 1700s.
Totally different story.
Ah...um...grapefruit.
Yes! Grapefruit! Indeed. Well done.
See if you can guess which one
that is?
That's a lovely fragrance. Um...
What is that?
It's what we call amber.
Amber is actually made from
the intestines of the sperm whale.
Given that, it smells quite good.
In over 300 years, only 30 people
have been entrusted with the secret
recipe of Farina's Eau de Cologne.
The current Johann Maria Farina
is one of them.
Is the recipe today
the same the same as it was?
Yes. The recipe was always kept
secret and always kept the same way.
Tell me about the great
British clients of your firm.
From the late 18th century on,
we delivered to England, or London.
Also the Queens and Kings in London
bought this product from us,
and from Queen Victoria onwards
we have been purveyor of the court.
Queen Victoria -
what did she like to buy?
She bought the original
Eau de Cologne.
She knew this product
from childhood, on.
And an average order of 60 dozen
was not unusual.
I'm leaving Cologne,
bound for my next destination,
and I wonder what
my fellow passengers will make
of Farina's 18th-century scent.
Excuse me.
I've got some Eau de Cologne here,
can I just test it on you?
Do you think that's for a man
or a woman?
Both. Really? Both.
Would you like to try this
Eau de Cologne?
OK, now I can...? Mm-hm.
What do you think of that?
It's a nice perfume
but I think it's a girl perfume.
When do you wear a scent?
When I shave,
then I do this aftershave.
You like to smell good? Yes, nice.
And your girlfriend likes you
to smell good? Yes. One of them.
One of them!
THEY LAUGH
You're very trusting.
What do you think of that?
It's very nice. It's not too strong.
Would you wear it yourself?
Yes. I think so, yes.
Have a good journey. Where are you
going to? I'm going to Wuppertal.
Wuppertal! I'm going there too.
Maybe I'll see you there.
I hope so. Have a nice day.
Bye. Bye.
Before I leave Germany's
industrial heartland
my Bradshaw's draws my attention
to Elberfeld and Barmen,
"with several suburbs,
they are practically
one large industrial town,
"stretching along the valley of
the Wupper and up the side slopes."
Those areas have now been
consolidated in Wuppertal,
and I'm attracted there
because of its special place
in railway history.
At the turn of the 20th century,
as Germany's industrial output
soared
and workers flooded
into the Ruhr Valley,
those who settled
in Elberfeld and Barmen
needed a transport system to get
them to and from their factories.
The answer was typically German -
modern, pragmatic
and perfectly engineered.
The 13km Schwebebahn, a unique
suspended railway, known locally
as the Old Lady,
began running in 1901.
My guide is Melanie Schoeppe.
Why did they build
THIS sort of railway here?
Why not a conventional one?
Because we have a very rocky subsoil
and so we had to build a railway
over the Wupper river.
You couldn't build one underground?
No, it's not possible.
I imagined it was going to be
a kind of museum railway,
but, actually,
it's well used by the public.
Yes. About 18,000 people use
the train daily.
Something I'm not used to is that
I can see into everybody's window.
I can see into everybody's house.
Do the people feel OK about that?
At the beginning of the century
there were many religious groups
which protested vigorously
against the Iron Dragon,
as they called
the suspension railway.
But today people are used to it.
So they thought they'd see into
people's bedrooms - which you can!
'The Schweberbahn runs
a non-stopping service
'aboard a very historic carriage,
dispensing cheesecake and coffee.'
This is going to be great!
The railway welcomes passengers
aboard its Kaiserwagen,
the very train
that carried Emperor Wilhelm II
on the day
that he came to open the line,
which represented his country's
latest engineering triumph.
More than 100 years later,
as I'm whisked along on this unique
suspended monorail,
I can readily appreciate
the pride he felt.
I'm now extending my Bradshaw's
recommended routes
to travel to the region
of the Rhine -
an area that, at the
beginning of the 20th century,
was immensely popular with tourists
but at that time its railways were
important for another reason too -
for the transport
of soldiers and guns.
My 1913 Bradshaw's tells me
that on a war-footing, Germany has
an army of three million.
Not information that I'd expect
to find in a modern guidebook.
Before I get to my overnight stay
at Koblenz,
'I'm meeting military historian
Dr Rainer Mertens
'to learn of the railways' central
role in Germany's war-readiness.'
How early on
do you think it was appreciated
that the railways could be helpful
to armies?
I think in Germany it started
with the revolution in 1848,
where Prussian troops were moved,
were transported,
to defeat the revolutionaries.
My guidebook is from 1913 - now,
what plans were in place in 1913
for the use of the railways
in wartime?
In the years
before the First World War,
General Schlieffen developed a plan
first to defeat France in the west
with seven-eighths
of all German troops
and then after defeating
the French troops,
bringing back the troops to the east
and fighting against Russia.
Now, that Schlieffen Plan
must have depended heavily,
entirely on railways. Absolutely.
And you have to imagine
when the war broke out at 2nd August
and up to the 14th August,
they transported over three million
soldiers by 11,000 trains.
There were some very famous
railway guns, weren't there?
We in Britain have heard
of Big Bertha.
They constructed weapon guns
that were very heavy,
like they could shoot
about 60 or 70 miles.
It was almost like a rocket.
Generally, you can say
that WWI was a railway war
because all that strategy
was based on the railways.
More than ever before were killed
and the next were brought
to the battlefields.
And so millions and millions
lost their lives
and this was only possible
by the railway.
After World War I,
a vanquished Germany
yielded some of its outlying
territories, towns and cities.
For more than ten years after the
armistice, Koblenz in the Rhineland
was held by France.
But that was unforeseeable in 1913.
My Bradshaw's says that Koblenz
is the capital
of the Rhinish province of Prussia,
picturesquely situated
at the confluence
of the rivers Rhine and Mosel.
And since the names of both those
rivers make me think of wine,
this could be a good place
to spend the night.
And I bet the food's not bad either.
Good evening.
Looks like a lovely restaurant.
Thank you.
The asparagus looks wonderful.
Yes. Thank you.
Guten Appetit! Thank you very much.
German asparagus in season.
Heaven!
After a splendid evening,
I've woken in the Rhineland.
My Bradshaw's says,
"Vine-clad hills, rugged peaks,
"ruined castles
and modern stately dwellings
"with the glamour of history and
legend clinging to many a scene."
I'm now in the region
of the Rhine castles -
a mixture of authentic
Medieval ruins
and 19th-century
Gothic restorations,
and a favourite
with Edwardian travellers.
I'm heading for one recommended
by my 1913 guidebook.
Bradshaw's tells me
that Stolzenfels Castle
"is on the wooded heights
above the river.
"It's the property of the Emperor
and can be visited."
And it helpfully suggests
that I can take a donkey.
There don't seem to be any around,
so it will have to be shanks' pony.
The French often conquered
the Rhineland,
destroying castles in their path.
But in the early 19th century,
Prussia won it back
and Crown Prince Freidrich Wilhelm
decided to rebuild Stolzenfels,
once a bishop's seat,
as his summer residence.
Queen Victoria visited
her cousin's new castle.
And in the early 20th century,
so did many Edwardian tourists.
Historian Angela Kaiser-Lahme
was involved in Stolzenfels'
most recent restoration.
The castle
is in beautiful condition.
Yes. We had it restored
in the recent years
and it's now looking
as it has in the 1840s.
Presumably this has been
many, many years' work.
Oh, yes.
Basically, six to eight years.
And a wonderful view, of course,
over the Rhine.
Well, that is lovely.
Oh, yes, indeed it is.
Many visitors are saying
the same thing.
Angela, you see so many castles
on the Rhine River,
how many are there, or were there?
In between Koblenz and Bingen,
there are said to be more than 40.
So every ten kilometres or sometimes
less than ten kilometres,
you find a castle or two.
Why were there so many?
The Rhine was the main
transport route in the Middle Ages.
So every good was transported
over the Rhine.
And that means much income for those
who could draw the taxes
from all these goods.
And was Stolzenfels built
for that reason?
Yes. It was more or less
a custom station.
And the Bishop of Trier
took quite a lot of his income
from these taxes.
The powerful Rhineland magnates
became known as Robber Barons.
But during the 19th century,
their castles provided the backdrop
for a new artistic movement
called the Romantics,
whose patriotism drew inspiration
from fables of the Middle Ages,
celebrating
the glories of German culture.
Richard Wagner set his opera
about the dragon-slayer Siegfried
on the Rhine.
By the time of my 1913 guidebook,
Britain was intensely worried
that German nationalism
had become aggressive,
and Europe feared war.
So you get romanticism,
you get Richard Wagner,
you get the rebuilding
of some of the Rhine castles
and you get German nationalism
at the same time.
When Stolzenfels was rebuilt,
and that was about 1842,
nationalism was young.
And it had a different drive.
It was more patriotism,
more romantic.
At the end of the 19th century,
Germany wanted to play in the same
league as Great Britain and France.
And this patriotism
really became nationalism.
The Rhine's steep slopes
and eerie ruins
inspired enduring German myths.
Just like a traveller in 1913,
I feel dragons and seductive
Rhine sprites always close at hand.
Bradshaw's says, "The River Rhine
is abundantly interesting.
"From its impetuous source
"to its sluggish meeting
with the sea."
I think it's one of the great rivers
of the world.
And the way to experience it
is afloat.
My final destination is downriver
at Rheingau.
What better way to get there
than on a beautiful paddle steamer
built in 1913 - the year
that my guidebook was published?
It lists the times of train arrivals
and steamer departures
to help rail passengers
to plan a smooth journey.
When on The Rhine,
eat as Rhinelanders do.
Hello. May I join you? Yes.
Isn't it wonderful today?
What a lovely view!
It's lovely. It's a dream.
What do you think of the ship?
I think there are more modern ones,
but this is one a beautiful,
comfortable ship.
I chose this ship
because I'm using a 1913 guidebook.
Ah, that's interesting.
This ship is from the beginning
of the 20th century.
I can tell you the time
of all the steamers in 1913!
THEY LAUGH
This is amazing.
Coming from England,
and I know nothing.
THEY LAUGH
My Bradshaw's draws attention
to a famous wine-producing district
extending from a little west
of Rudesheim to Eltville.
At the beginning
of the 20th century,
Rhine wines were particularly prized
by British connoisseurs.
And I've no reason to believe
that they're any less deserving
of admiration today.
In late 20th-century Britain,
German wine fell from fashion.
But for the Edwardians,
Riesling, made from grapes grown
on the banks of the Rhine,
was very popular,
and known simply as hock.
This has to be one
of the loveliest views in Europe.
Well, it's certainly a very special
place here in the Rhine Valley,
with this fantastic view of the river
and the whole landscape.
Dieter Greiner is managing director
at Kloster Eberbach,
sited in an ancient
Cistercian monastery,
whose monks planted vines here
800 years ago.
Why are these slopes here
so good for wine?
Well, first of all,
we are very much north.
We are on the 50th parallel.
And you see down there the Rhine
River. It's over a kilometre wide.
It keeps the warmth here in winter,
and in summer, it really cools down.
So in winter, it's never too cold,
in summer, never too hot.
At the beginning
of the 20th century particularly,
Riesling was very popular
in the United Kingdom.
And it was called hock.
Why was it called hock?
Well, your Queen Victoria visited
a village called Hochheim
and she was presented a wine from
this village and she loved it a lot.
And then she made this wine
very popular in the UK.
And then the British called
this wine from Hochheim,
with abbreviation, just hock.
So this is the bedroom of the monks.
It's the most beautiful space.
It was obviously a big abbey.
There were a lot of monks.
Oh, yes. About 60 monks on average.
But sometimes even up to 120.
And all these monks
were sleeping in here.
Just imagine the snoring sound
at night!
After they'd drunk their Riesling.
Well, they certainly had their share.
Here we are. It's wonderful!
You obviously have
some wonderful wines here.
What would be the oldest
that you have?
Well, in fact, the oldest bottles
date back to the year 1706.
1706! That's incredible!
And valuable wines, too.
What's the most valuable?
The most expensive bottle
is about £18,000 we have in here.
Extraordinary!
I always ask people, were
the railways used in this business?
There was one very important
transportation of wine
when the Duke of Nassau
took the wrong side
on the war of the Prussians
against the Austrians.
And so he had to leave.
And all the wines
were evacuated overnight
and all put on a railway wagon
and taken into exile.
I'm sure they would have been
entirely safe on German railways.
And how long would a wine like this
keep, by the way?
Well, 150, 200 years minimum.
Really?
So you could still drink some wine
from the 19th century?
The best vintages, yes, of course.
They are almost ageless.
What might we sample today?
Well, I think what would be very
interesting is a dry style Riesling,
which is the original style
of Riesling.
Maestro,
you'll need your instrument.
Not this time. We use screw caps.
THEY LAUGH
Smells good to me. How is it?
It has dried apricots, it has
this bit of hay, fresh-cut hay.
The body's not rich. It's
a medium body and a great length.
This wonderful crisp acidity,
but not too acidic, just fresh.
And it's a wonderful wine
which makes you want more.
That's what I meant to say.
Yes. I like it very much.
Edwardians flocked to Germany
because they loved its landscape
and admired its science
and industry.
Queen Victoria enjoyed this scenery
from her railway carriage.
Yet our two countries went to war,
spilling the blood of generations.
Thankfully, in the modern world,
we've rediscovered the bonds
that we took for granted
when my Bradshaw's Guide
was published.
On my next journey,
I'll explore Switzerland,
whose remarkable railways made it
a favourite with Edwardian tourists.
I've been lucky enough to experience
some very beautiful train journeys,
but this one must be
one of the very best.
I'll immerse myself in literature.
Do you remember
any Sherlock Holmes stories?
HE HOWLS
And see how great engineering feats
conquered
the most challenging peaks.
That is awe-inspiring!
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
on a new railway adventure
that will take me
across the heart of Europe.
I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's
Continental Railway Guide,
dated 1913, which opened up
an exotic world of foreign travel
for the British tourist.
It told travellers where to go,
what to see and how to navigate
the thousands of miles of tracks
criss-crossing the continent.
Now, a century later,
I'm using my copy to reveal an era
of great optimism and energy,
where technology, industry, science
and the arts were flourishing.
I want to rediscover that lost
Europe that in 1913 couldn't know
that its way of life would shortly
be swept aside by the advent of war.
Steered by my 1913 railway guide,
I'm journeying across prosperous
pre-war Europe.
This leg takes me
to Imperial Germany, whose emperor,
Queen Victoria's grandson
Kaiser Wilhelm II,
would soon take family feuding
to a tragic new level.
So the two countries
that went to war
were ruled over by first cousins?
Yes.
I'll take to the skies on a train...
I can see into everybody's window,
I can see into everybody's house.
..sample local cuisine...
When on the Rhine,
eat as Rhinelanders do.
'..appreciate local smells...'
That IS very, very strong.
..meet local characters...
Hello, my beauty! Nice to meet you!
'..and enjoy the fruits
of its ancient vineyards.'
I like it very much.
My journey begins in the capital,
Berlin,
heads west to the city of Magdeburg
and the picturesque Harz Mountains.
I'll then discover the majesty
of Hanover, from where I'll continue
to Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley
at Essen,
followed then by the Gothic beauty
of Cologne.
I'll head towards Koblenz,
learning what role the railways
played in the First World War,
before joining the tourist trail
down the castle-studded banks
of the River Rhine.
In 1913, the so-called German Empire
was then a young country,
having been brought together
just a few decades before
out of a group
of formerly independent states.
My Bradshaw's tells me that the
German Empire consists of 25 states
and the Imperial territory
of Alsace-Lorraine,
and it then lists them
in order of magnitude -
beginning, of course, with Prussia -
and I'm headed now
for its glittering capital, Berlin.
I'm arriving
at Berlin's Hauptbahnhof,
a spectacular product of the new,
unified Germany.
This five-tiered
glass and steel structure
opened in 2006
at a cost of £480 million
to provide travellers with
a one-stop connection north to south
and, more symbolically,
East to West.
I love Berlin's
new main railway station,
its two crystal tunnels
intersecting at this point.
It's an aesthetic
and technological triumph,
and yet,
despite being entirely modern,
it's reminiscent of Victorian
railway stations
made of cast iron and glass.
In 1913, Germany's engineering
and industrial prowess
was being nurtured by
its vehemently nationalist emperor.
Kaiser Wilhelm was obsessed
with bettering the two major powers
of the previous century.
He aimed for a navy
to emulate Britain's,
and Berlin, his capital,
was fast rivalling Paris.
"Berlin," asserts my Bradshaw's,
"is THE most modern
of the great cities of Europe.
"Broad streets, handsome buildings,
spacious squares and open places
"rendered more attractive
by trees and statues."
And at a time when Britain was
suffering from industrial strife,
turmoil in Ireland and suffragette
outrages, it adds, perhaps
a little enviously, "Cleanliness
and order are everywhere."
I'm heading to the heart
of Wilhelm's Imperial Berlin
and probably the city's
best-known landmark.
In 1913, the Brandenburg Gate would
have beckoned visitors towards
the Kaiser's Palace.
But after the Second World War,
it symbolically barred passage
between communist East
and capitalist West Germany.
'Matt Robinson is my guide.'
Why is the Brandenburg Gate such
an important symbol for Germany?
It was the gate used by the king,
who had come from the royal district
further down Unter Den Linden
passing through to the Tiergarten,
and this is where Germans came
to celebrate in 1871
when Germany became Germany.
It's where the German soldiers
marched back through in December 1918
following the armistice in November,
the end of the First World War.
What happened to the Brandenburg
Gate during the Cold War?
Between 1961 and 1989,
the Brandenburg Gate
was in the death strip
of the Berlin Wall.
This is the area in between
the two walls that existed.
This is the area
where East German border guards
were shooting people
as traitors to the state
as they tried to escape to the West.
The East Germans never referred
to the Berlin Wall
as the Berlin Wall that they built
to stop East Germans from leaving.
It was always the
"anti-fascist protection barrier"
to stop the fascists in the West
from getting to the East
and corrupting
this East German socialist paradise.
It's quite a thought, isn't it?
A bit small, this one.
'For all its melancholy history, the
Gate is now a tourist attraction.
'But I'm juggling a busy schedule
and need to move on.'
My Bradshaw's says
of the railway lines
that they're "probably more useful
for residents than for tourists,
"whose convenience is better served
by the trams." Can we take a tram?
We can. There are none around here
but we can certainly head
further into the east. Very good.
In the decades before
my 1913 guidebook was published,
the great European powers
were in a race
for technological supremacy.
And when the world's first
electric tram ran in Berlin in 1881,
the city took a step ahead
of its rivals.
So, historically, the trams have
been pretty important in Berlin?
As Berlin developed in the late 1800s
as the Imperial capital
of Germany, there was a necessity
to get workers to the factories
in the central parts of the city.
Thus, the public transportation
network developed
to become
one of the largest in the country.
In fact, to this day
it's still the largest in Germany.
How big did this network become?
By the late 1920s, it was massive.
There was some 600 kilometres
of track throughout the city,
90 different lines, in fact,
in Berlin alone.
1913 Germany was both wealthy
and learned.
To speed industrial
and military development,
Wilhelm's government gave
unprecedented financial support
to universities
and research institutes.
In another success for the Kaiser,
the world's centre
of science and technology shifted
from Britain and France to Berlin.
I've come to the Archenhold
Observatory in search of a genius
who was developing theories
at the time my guidebook was written
that were to change science
for ever.
Dr Felix Luhning
is head of astronomy at Archenhold,
'in the southeast of the city.'
Hello, Felix. Hello, Michael.
My guidebook tells me that Berlin's
scientific institutions
are of worldwide renown.
Was it important to the Kaiser, the
German Reich, to promote science?
Yes. It was a matter of reputation
and it was also a matter of, um,
well, so to speak,
support for big business.
In 1879, the centrepiece
of Berlin's Trade Fair
was the world's first
electric railway.
Then, the city amazed visitors
again by unveiling
a huge and powerful telescope -
the Treptow.
Well, it's absolutely the biggest
telescope that I'VE ever seen.
When was it built and how big is it?
Well, it was built in 1896
and it is the longest telescope
of the world, 21 metres' focus.
Such a telescope at the end
of the 19th century must have
attracted visitors from far
and wide. Yes, that's right.
The observatory
was crowded with people.
Everybody was curious about what
to see in this big telescope.
Can we see it operating?
Yes, of course.
Very simple, just push the button.
'With a magnification factor of 210,
the telescope provides
'detailed observations
of the moon and planets.
'But just after my 1913 guidebook
was written, an event
'at the Archenhold Observatory had
an even bigger impact on science.'
In 1915, the most influential
scientist of the century,
Albert Einstein,
'stunned the world with his
first-ever speech on relativity.'
So this is where Albert Einstein
gave his lecture? Yes.
Imagine this hall filled
with visitors and reporters
writing down articles.
Born in Germany in 1879,
Einstein developed
his general theory of relativity
to explain the Newtonian mystery
of gravity.
And what did it change?
It changed everything.
It changed the science,
it changed astronomy,
it changed also nuclear physics
and it changed cosmology.
Einstein's approach
to science was radical,
and his Nobel Prize in 1921
made him a genius celebrity.
But he could explain his complex
ideas in amusing layman's terms.
Einstein apparently joked that the
theory of relativity meant
two hours spent with a beautiful
girl passed in a minute,
and a minute spent on a hot stove
seemed like two hours.
But presumably what he was
really saying was
that time itself is elastic,
that it is relative.
Yes. He showed that it depended
on how you are moving.
The faster you're moving,
the slower time goes by for you.
An avowed pacifist, Einstein devised
the world-famous equation "E=mc2",
which confirmed the relationship
between mass and energy -
an insight necessary
to develop the atomic bomb.
A consequence that made him
uncomfortable in later life.
I believe that railways played
an important part in his theory.
Yes, because railways are a perfect
example for the relativity
of movements. They are a perfect
example for a constant moving system.
Using models,
Einstein explained how a train
travelling along the horizon will
seem to move at a much slower speed
than one rushing past you
on a platform.
But they are, in fact,
going at the same speed.
Einstein showed that things
can't be regarded separately.
Time, mass and space
are connected together.
Felix, I don't think
I'll ever think the same way
about a railway journey again.
Thank you.
To leave Berlin,
I'm heading for Charlottenburg
in the west of the city.
The affluent suburb is still home
to an ornate palace and gardens
which my 1913 guidebook notes
"contains the mausoleum of the
Kaiser's late mother and father."
But I'm destined
for more rural landscapes
..Heute? Heute, ja.
26.60. Danke.
Danke, auf Wiedersehen.
I'm travelling via Magdeburg to the
natural beauties of Saxony-Anhalt,
a state steeped in legend.
My Bradshaw's Guide tells me
that German scenery
"is generally pleasing and varied,
"and there are many pretty mountain
chains of moderate elevation."
I'm headed for the Harz Mountains,
which Edwardian travellers enjoyed
for the beautiful fresh air
and the stunning views.
The Harz Mountains extend
for 100 kilometres.
Maximising
its engineering resources,
Germany laid three railways here
in the late 19th century,
primarily to transport
the range's rich minerals.
When the third scaled the mountain's
tallest peak, the Brocken,
it became the country's longest and
most scenic narrow-gauge railway.
And I'm excited to ride it
because it runs on steam.
My Bradshaw's tells me that
the Brocken is "3,145 feet high,
"the highest summit
of the Harz Mountains."
What better way to get there than
on this delightful steam railway?
This must be one of the great
train rides in Europe.
The steam engine curling ahead,
the train weaving between the trees
as we make our way, panting,
towards the summit of the Brocken.
Was ist das?
Waldbeer. Mm-hm.
Schlehe mit Rum.
Ah-ha, Schlehe mit Rum. Ja.
Mm-hmm. Something with rum.
Ja, das geht.
Very attractive with their pictures
of the locomotives. Three euro.
Danke, danke.
Sehr gut! Good for the Herz?
Ja. Good for the heart?
Ja, sehr gut.
I believe it. Thank you. Mm.
Good for the heart
in the Harz Mountain. Get it?
The Harz Mountains
are famous in German folklore.
Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty
and Little Red Riding Hood
are all stories thought
to have emanated from here.
But the Brocken is most famous for a
pivotal scene in German literature.
Set on a night of spooks similar
to Halloween - called Walpurgis -
in Faust,
an 18th-century play by Goethe,
witches worship the devil
on this peak,
and evidently, even now,
the odd one may be attracted here.
Hello, my beauty. Hello,
nice to meet you! My beauty, indeed!
On the mountain! Why are you dressed
as a witch? Warum Hexe?
Hier ist der Brocken, der Brocken...
This is the Brocken mountain.
..auf dem Gipfel
um dem Teufel auf den Arsch zu kussen
und holen sich ihre Hexenkraft.
SHE LAUGHS
Da sind wir immer dabei!
I don't understand everything,
but I think she's telling me
that for ten years she's been coming
here, and on the Brocken Mountain,
the witches practise witchcraft
on Walpurgis Night.
Walpurgis Night, yes.
Is that right? Yes!
Oh! Do Hexe like a drink?
Yes. Oh, yes!
MICHAEL LAUGHS
Woo!
Oh!
Mm, that's the way to do it, isn't
it? Wow, super! It's for you! Ja.
Did you leave any?! Cheers!
Cheers! Mmm!
Sehr gut.
Auf Wiedersehen!
..Sehr gut, ja!
In 1913, lured by the Brocken's
scenery and witches,
at least 50,000 tourists
trekked to the summit.
Then, as now, it was traditional to
make the 1,142-metre ascent on foot.
We walked from... Torfhaus.
Torfhaus. Ah-ha!
It's seven kilometres.
And how long has that taken you?
12 o'clock. 12 o'clock you set out.
2.30 now, so two hours and twenty
minutes. Ja. Very good. Healthy! Ja.
Hello, sir. Hello, sir.
Have you walked a long way?
Oh, not a long way. From Schriker.
And how long has that taken you?
Oh, six kilometres, about two hours.
Do you come up the Brocken
very often? No, it's the first time.
Really? Yes. Congratulations!
Thank you.
Leaving the natural beauty
of the Harz Mountains behind,
I'm bound for my next destination -
Hanover.
The city may help me to understand
why Kaiser Wilhelm was so driven
by a sense of rivalry with Britain
to the West and Russia to the East.
Bradshaw's tells me
that "mid-Europe time,
"one hour in advance
of Greenwich Time,
"is observed on all lines
in Germany.
"The fares are less than in most
other parts of the continent,
"averaging one and two-fifths pence
per mile, first class,"
which shows the limitations of using
a guidebook 100 years old.
"Railway carriages in Germany
are clean and comfortable,"
so some things
haven't changed at all.
With its beautiful buildings
and highly admired culture,
Hanover, a formerly independent
German kingdom which had become
a province of Prussia, was a magnet
for early 20th-century
British travellers
with an interest in royalty.
On my British railway journeys,
I have often followed
in the footsteps of Queen Victoria.
In Hanover, my Bradshaw's draws my
attention to Schloss Herrenhausen,
where George I and George II lived.
So, extraordinarily,
here in the heart of Germany,
I find myself close to the origins
of Queen Victoria, who was our last
monarch in the line of Hanover.
I've made my way
to the impressive Royal Palace
and botanical gardens
of Herrenhausen to find out more
from Petra Kiel-Heurich,
a local guide.
Petra. Hello.
Hello. May we go in? Of course.
Petra, how did it come to be
that George I, a German,
became the King of England?
You know, he was in line
to the throne, number 58, 59,
but, you know, he was a Protestant,
and all the other pretenders
were Catholics,
and so the English didn't want
to have any Catholic on the throne.
So they took George I from Hanover
as their king in London.
Cos the thing that really mattered
was that he wasn't a Catholic,
so that overrode his disadvantage
of being a German?
Amazingly enough, yes.
After Duke Ernest Augustus
of Hanover married Sophia,
granddaughter
of Britain's King James I,
the British Act of Settlement,
banning Catholics from the throne,
designated Sophia heiress
to the British crown.
But after she died in 1714,
her son, George,
became the first of five monarchs to
rule over both Hanover and Britain.
I suppose when George I became king,
he had to learn a new language.
He didn't speak English,
not a single word,
so the English people
couldn't believe that somebody
was coming from Germany
who was not even able to communicate.
So he NEVER learned English?
No, he did not.
He was the only English king who
was buried outside of Great Britain.
I have a guidebook here from 1913...
Mm-hm.
So what was the relationship
between the British Royal Family
and the German royalty
in that period?
You know,
both monarchs were cousins.
Both were grandsons
from Queen Victoria,
and here in Germany,
it was Emperor William II,
and in England it was George V.
So the two countries
that went to war
the year after my guidebook
was written
were ruled over by first cousins?
Yes, first cousins.
And they met together
with the Tsar from Russia.
It was Nicholas II,
and all three met at the marriage
of the Emperor's daughter
on the 24th May 1913.
The very time of my guidebook.
Yeah. It was the last big event
before the First World War started
one year later.
The Tsar was also related
to the British Royal Family. Yeah.
He was another cousin,
so they were three.
So George V, the Kaiser and
the Tsar were all cousins? Mm-hm.
Amazing. And all involved
in the war. Ja. One year later.
History weighs heavily in this city.
The First World War was not,
as hoped, the war to end all wars.
During the Second World War,
almost all of majestic Hanover
was obliterated by Allied bombing.
After the conflict, some buildings
were rebuilt from the rubble,
including my hotel for the night.
According to Bradshaw's, "German
hotels are second to the Swiss,
"the best in the world. The cuisine
is inferior only to the French,
"and the restaurants, superior."
Kastens Hotel is recommended
because it has central heating,
and an advertisement tells me it has
a motor garage and a restaurant.
Sounds like the place for me.
Kastens has served visitors
to Hanover for almost 160 years,
and I want to find out
how the hotel has changed
since my guidebook recommended it
in 1913.
Good evening. Hello, good evening.
I'm using a guidebook from 1913.
What was the hotel like then?
Well, it was like it is now,
the best hotel in town,
and a lot of aristocrats stayed here
and many travellers from England.
And what happened to the hotel
in World War II?
Hanover was bombed
and the hotel was also hit.
It was completely destroyed and the
owning family then just rebuilt it
and we had our first rooms ready
for the first International Fair
in 1947.
A wonderful effort.
I'm looking forward to staying here.
Which room am I in?
Your room number is 119 on the first
floor. Enjoy your stay with us.
Thank you, good night. Good night.
Auf Wiedersehen.
I'm bound next for the Ruhr Valley.
In 1913, it was both Germany's
industrial heartland
and the Kaiser's arsenal.
I'll then push south to Cologne,
detour east to experience
a technological marvel in Wuppertal,
before journeying to the Rhineland
to discover the river,
the vineyards that adorn its banks
and the cultural roots
of German nationalism.
Germany, in common with France
and Spain and Italy
and Japan, for that matter,
has a network of high-speed trains.
They're beautiful, they're silver,
they're called ICE,
and that spells "cool".
HE BLOWS WHISTLE
TRAIN HORN BLASTS
Guten Morgen. Is this your German
breakfast? Yeah. Wow! This looks...
Beer, at this time of the day?
It's always good!
Always good, beer?
Are you celebrating, gentlemen?
Is it a special occasion?
We have a trip to Dusseldorf.
Once a year, we have a trip
to a city, in this case Dusseldorf.
Last time we were in Munich
for Oktoberfest, and so on.
And what is that you're eating,
what is this?
Bratwurst. Bratwurst?
Are those gherkins? Gurke.
You call them...?
Gurke. Gurke? Gurke, gherkins.
Oh, wow! You've very, very kind.
Thank you very much indeed.
..Sauerkraut? Guten Appetit, hmm?
Mmm!
Sehr gut. It's good, yes? Mm.
I can safely say
this is the earliest in the morning
that I have ever eaten a gherkin.
MEN LAUGH
It's good, it's good.
THEY CHATTER IN GERMAN
Man cannot live by gherkin alone.
Time for my own breakfast.
Danke. You're welcome. Danke.
I've left behind
the elegant palaces of Hanover
and I'm heading for the traditional
industrial heartland of Germany,
the Rhineland-Westphalia
coal district,
which my Bradshaw's describes
as "32 miles in length
"and 5 to 14 miles wide.
"One of the most productive
coalfields in the world.
"The apparently never-ending
sequence of town after town
"with the innumerable chimneys
in all directions
"testify to an enormous activity."
By the time my guidebook was written
in 1913,
Germany had overtaken Britain
in industrial production.
Having been whisked along
on the flagship of German railways,
I need to change here at Dortmund
onto a slower train
bound for my next destination,
Essen.
Since the 18th century, the
Ruhr Valley has been synonymous
with the essential ingredients of
industrialisation - coal and steel.
As Wilhelm II settled on the throne,
the pits and foundries of the Ruhr
were expanded so fast
that Essen's population
almost quadrupled
between 1890 and 1910.
This was industrialisation
on an unparalleled scale.
The collieries and steelworks
may have turned the valley
into something resembling
Dante's Inferno,
but they were the Kaiser's
powerhouse, and in the early years
of the 20th century,
Germany's army was war-ready.
Rebuilt in 1932,
the Zollverein Coal Mine
was once the world's
most modern and productive.
It closed in the 1980s and is now
a UNESCO World Heritage Site
and cultural centre.
'Christian Shroeder is a curator.'
Christian, how good to see you.
Welcome. Nice to meet you.
It's good to see you.
This is a beautiful mine museum.
When did mining begin
in the Essen area?
Around about 1830.
All the buildings you can see
all around are much younger.
They are from 1920 to 1932.
Mining here became very extensive.
Oh, yeah.
The Ruhr area used to be
Europe's biggest industrial area.
We used to cook iron and steel
on 2,800 square kilometres.
We used to have
more than 700 big coal mines.
And thousands of miles of tunnels?
Oh, yeah, thousands of them.
Now, this mineshaft
is not only very impressive,
it's architecturally beautiful.
That's because the two young
architects who built this
were inspired
by Bauhaus architecture.
It was the functional Cubism
of those days.
May we take a look around?
Oh, sure, here we go.
We're getting a wonderful view
of the plant now.
Oh, yeah, we will. And
it's going to get better and better.
It's an amazing view. Tell me, at
the beginning of the 20th century,
what would we have been able to see
from here?
At the beginning of the 20th century,
skies would've been covered with dust
and the streets
would have been covered in ashes.
The horizon would have been crammed
with chimneys,
blast furnaces,
coking plants, steel mills,
all this, and today it's a
huge green landscape, as you can see.
Yeah, my Bradshaw's guide tells me
about the chimneys extending
to the horizon and also says
that Krupp's huge works are here.
Where was Krupp's?
Krupp's was in this direction
at the other side of the city centre.
And Krupp company used to be the
biggest steel company here in Essen.
Essen is associated
with the family Krupp
and Krupp is always associated
with Essen.
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it,
that my English Bradshaw's guide
in 1913 says, "Krupp" -
it doesn't have to say steel,
Krupp MEANT steel.
Yes. It's a legend in Germany -
Krupp.
He was one of the first
industrial pioneers
and he made German steel
what it became later on.
He was a maniac in cooking steel.
He slept in his workshop,
he lived in his workshop -
all he was doing was cooking steel
24 hours a day.
In 1852, industrialist Alfred Krupp
invented the seamless steel railway
tyre which made him his fortune.
His passion for steel
and profit then propelled him
into the arms business.
By the time of his death,
he had armed 46 nations,
and in the run-up
to the First World War,
his company would arm Germany,
earning Krupp the moniker
the Arsenal of the Reich.
Modern Germany is
a peace-loving country.
The Ruhr's chimneys
have been felled.
Zollverein now pursues
seams of culture rather than coal.
Bravo!
Thank you, that was wonderful.
Back to Essen Central to catch a
connection to my next destination -
Cologne.
No good. My German's not up to it.
I'll stick to my Bradshaw's.
Bradshaw's tells me that my next
destination, Cologne,
lies on the left bank of the River
Rhine. "It's an imperial fortress,
"the largest town of the Rhine
Provinces of Prussia."
Having thrown off the rust and dust
of the Ruhr in the 19th and 20th
centuries,
I'm looking forward to seeing
the wonderful medieval cathedral
in Cologne.
ARRIVAL ANNOUNCEMENT ON TRAIN'S PA
The oldest large town in Germany,
Cologne sits astride
the mighty Rhine.
With six million visitors a year,
its Cathedral is Germany's most
popular place of interest.
Its towers,
added in the 19th century
have dominated the city's skyline
since their completion in 1880.
The way they built the railway
next to the cathedral in Cologne
means that the view you get
on leaving this station
must have very few rivals
anywhere in Europe.
In 1164, Archbishop Rainald
von Dassel brought to Cologne
from the vanquished city of Milan
what he and the devout believed
to be the remains of the Three
Kings, who visited the baby Jesus.
The Gothic cathedral was a fittingly
grand building
that impressed pilgrims
paying homage to the Magi.
Measuring
almost 8,000 square metres,
with space for 4,000 worshippers
it's one of Germany's true
architectural glories.
I'm hugely impressed
by the cathedral
which my Bradshaw's tells me
"is sometimes described as
the most magnificent Gothic edifice
in the world."
I now want to do something which, in
my guide, comes highly recommended -
a visit to Johann Maria Farina at
4 Julich-Platz for Eau de Cologne.
In the 18th century,
perfume was big business
because filthy, sewerless cities
led to foul odours,
whilst polluted water discouraged
regular ablutions.
In Cologne, Italian immigrant
Johann Maria Farina
transformed the industry
by distilling pure alcohol
to produce lighter,
less sticky,
and more fragrant perfumes.
His signature scent
was Eau de Cologne.
Johann Maria Farina, I presume.
Ah, buongiorno.
Benvenuti alla mia casa.
Very good to see you.
So, who was Johann Maria Farina?
He basically was an Italian
perfume-maker who came to Cologne
about 300 years ago,
and he invented a perfume
which he then called Eau de Cologne.
This perfume created by an Italian
in Germany,
did it still have a very strong
Italian accent to it?
It did, yes. Basically, Farina must
have missed his native land of Italy,
so he tried to create a perfume
which reminded him of Italy.
You need to understand
that, in his days,
Cologne was a very smelly city.
The city altogether was,
and also the people themselves
didn't really wash
because they were afraid
the water would spread diseases
and all sorts.
Did it become an immediate success?
Yes, it did, very, very soon, yes.
Because it was so different to other
perfumes which were there before.
Basically, what you got were
very heavy-smelling perfumes.
Then it was all of a sudden
a very light, refreshing perfume.
Was it for men or for women?
Both. Unisex, it was.
What sort of people were able to buy
perfume in those days?
Not many.
It was very, very expensive.
In today's terms,
maybe 2,000 euro per bottle.
What sorts of people were
the clients of Eau de Cologne?
In Cologne, you've got famous
Prince Elector Clemens August
who bought 40 bottles in a month.
And also French emperor Napoleon used
one bottle a day for private purpose.
And Napoleon actually had himself
made special boots,
into the back of which he could hide
one bottle of Eau de Cologne.
So that
even when he was sitting on a horse
he could secretly use Eau de Cologne.
You've lots of intriguing bottles
here. Any that I can sniff?
Yeah, sure.
This, for example, is a heavy smell.
Something people used
before Farina came to Cologne.
Be careful. Just do a bit of hand
waving, because it is very strong.
That IS very, very strong.
So, if I mix that
with body odour and sewage...
And not washing for a couple
of months,
then you can imagine what people
smelled like - horrible!
This is a light fragrance.
Something people would not have had
before the 1700s.
Totally different story.
Ah...um...grapefruit.
Yes! Grapefruit! Indeed. Well done.
See if you can guess which one
that is?
That's a lovely fragrance. Um...
What is that?
It's what we call amber.
Amber is actually made from
the intestines of the sperm whale.
Given that, it smells quite good.
In over 300 years, only 30 people
have been entrusted with the secret
recipe of Farina's Eau de Cologne.
The current Johann Maria Farina
is one of them.
Is the recipe today
the same the same as it was?
Yes. The recipe was always kept
secret and always kept the same way.
Tell me about the great
British clients of your firm.
From the late 18th century on,
we delivered to England, or London.
Also the Queens and Kings in London
bought this product from us,
and from Queen Victoria onwards
we have been purveyor of the court.
Queen Victoria -
what did she like to buy?
She bought the original
Eau de Cologne.
She knew this product
from childhood, on.
And an average order of 60 dozen
was not unusual.
I'm leaving Cologne,
bound for my next destination,
and I wonder what
my fellow passengers will make
of Farina's 18th-century scent.
Excuse me.
I've got some Eau de Cologne here,
can I just test it on you?
Do you think that's for a man
or a woman?
Both. Really? Both.
Would you like to try this
Eau de Cologne?
OK, now I can...? Mm-hm.
What do you think of that?
It's a nice perfume
but I think it's a girl perfume.
When do you wear a scent?
When I shave,
then I do this aftershave.
You like to smell good? Yes, nice.
And your girlfriend likes you
to smell good? Yes. One of them.
One of them!
THEY LAUGH
You're very trusting.
What do you think of that?
It's very nice. It's not too strong.
Would you wear it yourself?
Yes. I think so, yes.
Have a good journey. Where are you
going to? I'm going to Wuppertal.
Wuppertal! I'm going there too.
Maybe I'll see you there.
I hope so. Have a nice day.
Bye. Bye.
Before I leave Germany's
industrial heartland
my Bradshaw's draws my attention
to Elberfeld and Barmen,
"with several suburbs,
they are practically
one large industrial town,
"stretching along the valley of
the Wupper and up the side slopes."
Those areas have now been
consolidated in Wuppertal,
and I'm attracted there
because of its special place
in railway history.
At the turn of the 20th century,
as Germany's industrial output
soared
and workers flooded
into the Ruhr Valley,
those who settled
in Elberfeld and Barmen
needed a transport system to get
them to and from their factories.
The answer was typically German -
modern, pragmatic
and perfectly engineered.
The 13km Schwebebahn, a unique
suspended railway, known locally
as the Old Lady,
began running in 1901.
My guide is Melanie Schoeppe.
Why did they build
THIS sort of railway here?
Why not a conventional one?
Because we have a very rocky subsoil
and so we had to build a railway
over the Wupper river.
You couldn't build one underground?
No, it's not possible.
I imagined it was going to be
a kind of museum railway,
but, actually,
it's well used by the public.
Yes. About 18,000 people use
the train daily.
Something I'm not used to is that
I can see into everybody's window.
I can see into everybody's house.
Do the people feel OK about that?
At the beginning of the century
there were many religious groups
which protested vigorously
against the Iron Dragon,
as they called
the suspension railway.
But today people are used to it.
So they thought they'd see into
people's bedrooms - which you can!
'The Schweberbahn runs
a non-stopping service
'aboard a very historic carriage,
dispensing cheesecake and coffee.'
This is going to be great!
The railway welcomes passengers
aboard its Kaiserwagen,
the very train
that carried Emperor Wilhelm II
on the day
that he came to open the line,
which represented his country's
latest engineering triumph.
More than 100 years later,
as I'm whisked along on this unique
suspended monorail,
I can readily appreciate
the pride he felt.
I'm now extending my Bradshaw's
recommended routes
to travel to the region
of the Rhine -
an area that, at the
beginning of the 20th century,
was immensely popular with tourists
but at that time its railways were
important for another reason too -
for the transport
of soldiers and guns.
My 1913 Bradshaw's tells me
that on a war-footing, Germany has
an army of three million.
Not information that I'd expect
to find in a modern guidebook.
Before I get to my overnight stay
at Koblenz,
'I'm meeting military historian
Dr Rainer Mertens
'to learn of the railways' central
role in Germany's war-readiness.'
How early on
do you think it was appreciated
that the railways could be helpful
to armies?
I think in Germany it started
with the revolution in 1848,
where Prussian troops were moved,
were transported,
to defeat the revolutionaries.
My guidebook is from 1913 - now,
what plans were in place in 1913
for the use of the railways
in wartime?
In the years
before the First World War,
General Schlieffen developed a plan
first to defeat France in the west
with seven-eighths
of all German troops
and then after defeating
the French troops,
bringing back the troops to the east
and fighting against Russia.
Now, that Schlieffen Plan
must have depended heavily,
entirely on railways. Absolutely.
And you have to imagine
when the war broke out at 2nd August
and up to the 14th August,
they transported over three million
soldiers by 11,000 trains.
There were some very famous
railway guns, weren't there?
We in Britain have heard
of Big Bertha.
They constructed weapon guns
that were very heavy,
like they could shoot
about 60 or 70 miles.
It was almost like a rocket.
Generally, you can say
that WWI was a railway war
because all that strategy
was based on the railways.
More than ever before were killed
and the next were brought
to the battlefields.
And so millions and millions
lost their lives
and this was only possible
by the railway.
After World War I,
a vanquished Germany
yielded some of its outlying
territories, towns and cities.
For more than ten years after the
armistice, Koblenz in the Rhineland
was held by France.
But that was unforeseeable in 1913.
My Bradshaw's says that Koblenz
is the capital
of the Rhinish province of Prussia,
picturesquely situated
at the confluence
of the rivers Rhine and Mosel.
And since the names of both those
rivers make me think of wine,
this could be a good place
to spend the night.
And I bet the food's not bad either.
Good evening.
Looks like a lovely restaurant.
Thank you.
The asparagus looks wonderful.
Yes. Thank you.
Guten Appetit! Thank you very much.
German asparagus in season.
Heaven!
After a splendid evening,
I've woken in the Rhineland.
My Bradshaw's says,
"Vine-clad hills, rugged peaks,
"ruined castles
and modern stately dwellings
"with the glamour of history and
legend clinging to many a scene."
I'm now in the region
of the Rhine castles -
a mixture of authentic
Medieval ruins
and 19th-century
Gothic restorations,
and a favourite
with Edwardian travellers.
I'm heading for one recommended
by my 1913 guidebook.
Bradshaw's tells me
that Stolzenfels Castle
"is on the wooded heights
above the river.
"It's the property of the Emperor
and can be visited."
And it helpfully suggests
that I can take a donkey.
There don't seem to be any around,
so it will have to be shanks' pony.
The French often conquered
the Rhineland,
destroying castles in their path.
But in the early 19th century,
Prussia won it back
and Crown Prince Freidrich Wilhelm
decided to rebuild Stolzenfels,
once a bishop's seat,
as his summer residence.
Queen Victoria visited
her cousin's new castle.
And in the early 20th century,
so did many Edwardian tourists.
Historian Angela Kaiser-Lahme
was involved in Stolzenfels'
most recent restoration.
The castle
is in beautiful condition.
Yes. We had it restored
in the recent years
and it's now looking
as it has in the 1840s.
Presumably this has been
many, many years' work.
Oh, yes.
Basically, six to eight years.
And a wonderful view, of course,
over the Rhine.
Well, that is lovely.
Oh, yes, indeed it is.
Many visitors are saying
the same thing.
Angela, you see so many castles
on the Rhine River,
how many are there, or were there?
In between Koblenz and Bingen,
there are said to be more than 40.
So every ten kilometres or sometimes
less than ten kilometres,
you find a castle or two.
Why were there so many?
The Rhine was the main
transport route in the Middle Ages.
So every good was transported
over the Rhine.
And that means much income for those
who could draw the taxes
from all these goods.
And was Stolzenfels built
for that reason?
Yes. It was more or less
a custom station.
And the Bishop of Trier
took quite a lot of his income
from these taxes.
The powerful Rhineland magnates
became known as Robber Barons.
But during the 19th century,
their castles provided the backdrop
for a new artistic movement
called the Romantics,
whose patriotism drew inspiration
from fables of the Middle Ages,
celebrating
the glories of German culture.
Richard Wagner set his opera
about the dragon-slayer Siegfried
on the Rhine.
By the time of my 1913 guidebook,
Britain was intensely worried
that German nationalism
had become aggressive,
and Europe feared war.
So you get romanticism,
you get Richard Wagner,
you get the rebuilding
of some of the Rhine castles
and you get German nationalism
at the same time.
When Stolzenfels was rebuilt,
and that was about 1842,
nationalism was young.
And it had a different drive.
It was more patriotism,
more romantic.
At the end of the 19th century,
Germany wanted to play in the same
league as Great Britain and France.
And this patriotism
really became nationalism.
The Rhine's steep slopes
and eerie ruins
inspired enduring German myths.
Just like a traveller in 1913,
I feel dragons and seductive
Rhine sprites always close at hand.
Bradshaw's says, "The River Rhine
is abundantly interesting.
"From its impetuous source
"to its sluggish meeting
with the sea."
I think it's one of the great rivers
of the world.
And the way to experience it
is afloat.
My final destination is downriver
at Rheingau.
What better way to get there
than on a beautiful paddle steamer
built in 1913 - the year
that my guidebook was published?
It lists the times of train arrivals
and steamer departures
to help rail passengers
to plan a smooth journey.
When on The Rhine,
eat as Rhinelanders do.
Hello. May I join you? Yes.
Isn't it wonderful today?
What a lovely view!
It's lovely. It's a dream.
What do you think of the ship?
I think there are more modern ones,
but this is one a beautiful,
comfortable ship.
I chose this ship
because I'm using a 1913 guidebook.
Ah, that's interesting.
This ship is from the beginning
of the 20th century.
I can tell you the time
of all the steamers in 1913!
THEY LAUGH
This is amazing.
Coming from England,
and I know nothing.
THEY LAUGH
My Bradshaw's draws attention
to a famous wine-producing district
extending from a little west
of Rudesheim to Eltville.
At the beginning
of the 20th century,
Rhine wines were particularly prized
by British connoisseurs.
And I've no reason to believe
that they're any less deserving
of admiration today.
In late 20th-century Britain,
German wine fell from fashion.
But for the Edwardians,
Riesling, made from grapes grown
on the banks of the Rhine,
was very popular,
and known simply as hock.
This has to be one
of the loveliest views in Europe.
Well, it's certainly a very special
place here in the Rhine Valley,
with this fantastic view of the river
and the whole landscape.
Dieter Greiner is managing director
at Kloster Eberbach,
sited in an ancient
Cistercian monastery,
whose monks planted vines here
800 years ago.
Why are these slopes here
so good for wine?
Well, first of all,
we are very much north.
We are on the 50th parallel.
And you see down there the Rhine
River. It's over a kilometre wide.
It keeps the warmth here in winter,
and in summer, it really cools down.
So in winter, it's never too cold,
in summer, never too hot.
At the beginning
of the 20th century particularly,
Riesling was very popular
in the United Kingdom.
And it was called hock.
Why was it called hock?
Well, your Queen Victoria visited
a village called Hochheim
and she was presented a wine from
this village and she loved it a lot.
And then she made this wine
very popular in the UK.
And then the British called
this wine from Hochheim,
with abbreviation, just hock.
So this is the bedroom of the monks.
It's the most beautiful space.
It was obviously a big abbey.
There were a lot of monks.
Oh, yes. About 60 monks on average.
But sometimes even up to 120.
And all these monks
were sleeping in here.
Just imagine the snoring sound
at night!
After they'd drunk their Riesling.
Well, they certainly had their share.
Here we are. It's wonderful!
You obviously have
some wonderful wines here.
What would be the oldest
that you have?
Well, in fact, the oldest bottles
date back to the year 1706.
1706! That's incredible!
And valuable wines, too.
What's the most valuable?
The most expensive bottle
is about £18,000 we have in here.
Extraordinary!
I always ask people, were
the railways used in this business?
There was one very important
transportation of wine
when the Duke of Nassau
took the wrong side
on the war of the Prussians
against the Austrians.
And so he had to leave.
And all the wines
were evacuated overnight
and all put on a railway wagon
and taken into exile.
I'm sure they would have been
entirely safe on German railways.
And how long would a wine like this
keep, by the way?
Well, 150, 200 years minimum.
Really?
So you could still drink some wine
from the 19th century?
The best vintages, yes, of course.
They are almost ageless.
What might we sample today?
Well, I think what would be very
interesting is a dry style Riesling,
which is the original style
of Riesling.
Maestro,
you'll need your instrument.
Not this time. We use screw caps.
THEY LAUGH
Smells good to me. How is it?
It has dried apricots, it has
this bit of hay, fresh-cut hay.
The body's not rich. It's
a medium body and a great length.
This wonderful crisp acidity,
but not too acidic, just fresh.
And it's a wonderful wine
which makes you want more.
That's what I meant to say.
Yes. I like it very much.
Edwardians flocked to Germany
because they loved its landscape
and admired its science
and industry.
Queen Victoria enjoyed this scenery
from her railway carriage.
Yet our two countries went to war,
spilling the blood of generations.
Thankfully, in the modern world,
we've rediscovered the bonds
that we took for granted
when my Bradshaw's Guide
was published.
On my next journey,
I'll explore Switzerland,
whose remarkable railways made it
a favourite with Edwardian tourists.
I've been lucky enough to experience
some very beautiful train journeys,
but this one must be
one of the very best.
I'll immerse myself in literature.
Do you remember
any Sherlock Holmes stories?
HE HOWLS
And see how great engineering feats
conquered
the most challenging peaks.
That is awe-inspiring!
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