of denmark's queen margrethe, after 52 years on the throne. she'll leave the royal residence soon, for the short ride by carriage to christiansborg palace to sign the official papers. her eldest son frederik will then be proclaimed king from the balcony there. i will have a full bulletin of these at the top of the hour. now it's time for the travel show. europe by train — for generations of backpackers, interrailers, as well as for me, it is what travel is all about. and in germany, the railways are booming, partly because of this. it's called the deutschlandticket. it costs me 49 euros a month, and it allows me almost unlimited use of the country's regional public transport network.

it was a cost—of—living measure introduced in 2023, initially atjust nine euros each. i do love a train — who doesn't? so i'm planning to take them to criss—cross the country and get a better look at the close relationship between germans and their railways. from berlin's iconic u—bahn to the incredible hanging overhead railway of the industrial west, to the makeshift island trains of the northern coast... the water, the lights — this is stunning. i'm here to see how engineering and a bit of imagination have led to a network like no other. with almost 40,000km of track, germany's rail network is the longest in europe, which makes it the perfect place to explore by train.

but from berlin's vast central station, i'm taking an even cheaper form of transport for a spot of sightseeing. all right, we're doing it. we're crossing the tramway. ahh! fabulous. oh, it's beautiful. i can see the tv tower on my left, and it's so cloudy, the tip of it is just unseen. alexanderplatz is these days the touristic heart of the capital. until 1989, it was the main public square in communist east berlin. so i was born in 1990, which is a year after the berlin wall came down, so for myself and i'm sure for generation younger, there is no recollection of those news events, so being able to be here and just get a sense

of what it might have been like is still quite special. by 1989, the berlin wall had forcibly divided the city for 28 years, with the communists controlling the eastern part of the city while the capitalist west controlled the rest of berlin. travel between the two was strictly controlled, and in most cases, forbidden. but i'm heading down into the u—bahn, berlin's underground rail network, which i can access with the deutschlandticket. 0k, u8 this way. ooh! now, alexanderplatz was in the east, so anybody getting on the u—bahn, three stops in that direction, had to wait on board while they got safely four stops down that way. this was effectively a ghost station.

they were manned, guarded — you definitelyjust could not get off. athena kerins leads tours for a group called berlin underworld, which explores the tunnels and passageways underneath the city. so alexanderplatz would have been a ghost station, pretty eerie. what would that have been like? so, for the west berliners coming through, it would have been dark, a little bit eerie, withjust the glowing emergency exit signs, maybe a bit of light creeping in from the tunnel itself. for the east berliners, it would have been completely different, because they weren't allowed to know about this at all. if they knew that it was coming through here, they might be tempted to get into the train station or the tunnels and use them to escape. but even before those 28 years of division, the tunnels down here harboured secrets. athena's taken me to one of the world war ii bomb shelters built into the u—bahn network.

oh, wow! welcome to pankstrasse. welcome to our bunker. how long would they have stayed down here? as the war progressed, and especially as the americans joined the war, the americans bombed in the day, the british bombed by night, and towards the battle of berlin, there was also street fighting, people were down here days on end. it's quite interesting because you can hear rumbling going past. you get that big rumbling, passing noise all the time. would they have been aware that this bunker was here? you mean the... the passengers, yes. yeah, for sure, because this was used primarily by people who were in the transit system and during the bombing raid had to come somewhere. the people in here were lucky. as we go a few stops up the u8 line, athena takes me forward

in time to a later shelter, a symptom of berlin's position on the fault line of the historic tensions between east and west. welcome. so this is the bunker, or there is a bunker nearby? there's actually... we're in the bunker already, because this entire station is the bunker. it was originally opened in 1977 to be a multi—purpose facility. so it's both a train station, as you just saw, but also, in a 48—hour preparation period, it can be turned into an atomic fallout shelter. so this is some of our many, many, many dormitories. a big luxury here is that we actually all get our own bed, which is not standard for bunkers like this. we have several dormitories, but on top of that, about 2,000 people would have to be sleeping on the train platform itself. this is the pillow they would sleep on. that's the blanket and the pillow.

they are quite literally paper. oh, wow. so this is a kitchen, essentially for everybody. this is not a kitchen, this is the kitchen. the kitchen. this place is going to feed 3,339 people two meals a day. thankfully, we're not eating anything too glamourous. it's mostly going to be soups, assorted soups out of the cans. in this can is actually a dehydrated, jellified soup concentrate rather than normal soup. this is giving me sort of 1970s lab. yes, already a step above the last one. there is in fact a ventilation system here. so this place isn't going to protect us from a direct hit from a bomb, but in theory, if the rest of the world goes to war, this place can protect us from the radioactive fallout. 0k. while this now looks

like a relic of a bygone era, the german government's recently been investigating the possibility of restoring bunkers like these for use in the future. i know immediately following the russian invasion of ukraine, the topic came up a lot in germany. and the ministry for the interior did do a preliminary survey, because in the height of the cold war, there were quite literally thousands of these places around all of germany. most of the experts in the areas of civil defence have agreed that it's not really a productive use of money. it costs an insane amount of money to even just repair the ones that they've let fall into disrepair. but i'm surfacing for some fresh air now, and back to the capital's modern main station, hauptbahnhof, in search of trains bound for germany's industrial west. so i've been able to use my

deutschlandticket for this, but the big restriction is that you can't use it on the high—speed trains, so it's going to take probably twice the amount of time to actually travel around. you do need a bit of patience for this. you can buy a more expensive ticket and travel direct but the cut—price method means changing trains five times. so, i may have missed this one. wait, it's also late, so that means that i'll be fine. add to that the uncharacteristic delays and disruption that have dogged the german railway network in recent times, you'll need to leave plenty of time to make your connections. five—minute delay — that means we're good, right? 0h! oh, so i have missed it. we've missed it.

it's also quite fiddly to buy. you need to subscribe to a deutschlandticket, which means a monthly direct debit. so, if you're only here for a couple of weeks, you need to remember to cancel that as soon as your trips over. otherwise, you continue paying after you've headed home. my next stop is in the west of the country, not far from the industrial giants that have made this part of the world such an economic force. so, this is wuppertal. it's sandwiched between the two powerhouses of cologne and dortmund. it is much smaller in comparison but it has one thing going for it that has made it world—famous, and it's right there! the schwebebahn is a suspended monorail. the carriages hang from a track about 12m above the streets and the rivers of wuppertal.

hello! hi, inge! nice to meet you! i'm meeting inge, who grew up riding the schwebebahn and even got married on it back in 2006. it was built in 1893 or four but only in 1901 it was ready. and then, you could go from one town to the other. that's over 120 years that this has been standing here. yes. what do you think was the impression of the residents when they first saw this? they were impressed, i think. said, it's... "what is this? " yes. excited. ja! they feared it because they thought they could come and take them away or something like that. they didn't want the schwebebahn.

it's coming. shall we get on? yes. shall we stand? yes. i kind of want to feel it move. yes, hold on. 0h, hold on? it's going to move a lot? ok, you hold on as well. it does feel like it's sort of hovering, levitating. yes. a little bit bumpy but it's ok, it's pretty smooth. and so, what are some of your memories of being on here? it was very funny. my grandma — she came to wuppertal the first time in 1953. she stood at the street and looked up and said, "how can you come into the schwebebahn? " because she couldn't see that there was a platform. what do you think it represents for the people here? i think they like it because it's the one in the world. but i think they like to go from one

place to the other in a short time. i think about 85,000 people a day, they take it. oh, thank you! given all that history, it's a bit of a surprise there's been no proper museum to the schwebebahn. butjust as i arrived, all that's about to change. tomorrow, the schwebodrom opens and i'm here to meet its managing director thomas helbig as he makes the final few preparations. come in. hello, tom. how are you doing? fine. it's great that you are coming here. thank you. i'm excited. it's looking good. do you have anything left that you need to do today before tomorrow? we have to clean up a little bit but 95—98%, we are ready and it's great that you are coming here to our schwebebahn experience. emeline, please enter the first room. it is our projection world. and here, we tell the story of mobility — why it was necessary to build the schwebebahn because the population increased massively in the middle of the 19th

century as industrialisation came. as well as the projection, there are reminders of what the carriages looked like through the ages. and then, of course, this is like this, but you can't lean back. a lego diorama of wuppertal but the piece de resistance is at the end. emeline, let's just enter carriage number 11. here you see that it's still — you can still open the windows, for example. just put them on. 0oh! the brain really — after five seconds, you are in the world of 1929 and you really think you are making a left or right turn. a lot of people thought that it is against god, that it's too speedy, that it's too much metal over the river, that it looks ugly. other people who didn't

have the vision that this will change the mobility in the valley completely. the next day, and the grand opening attracts quite a crowd. applause. all: drei, zwei, eins! # madel, fahr mit mir schwebebahn. how was that for you? how are you feeling? oh, it was very emotional and i am really happy that it's now open. yes, it's great. all of your hard work! oh, i can feel the emotion! yes, i think people that come here and then, they will see what a history wuppertal has to tell and what a lovely town it is. and they will go back to their home town and they will tell, "we had a really good

day in wuppertal". i am using the deutschlandticket to head north now, out of germany's cities and to its coast. train horn blares. in the summer, the trains up here get busy with beach lovers. but the sunshine and crowds have thinned a little by the time i arrive. oh, wow! 0k, very, very windy! and this is schleswig—holstein, in the north—west of germany. any further north and i'll be arriving in denmark.

from here, i'm heading out over wadden sea. but it's not a boat i'll be taking. this is amazing! fabulous! pleasure to meet you! hello, emeline! this is the lorenbahn? ja! the lorenbahn trains service the hallig islands, which are cut off by the mainland from flooding up to 50 times a year. people living here use the little trains to get around. each family has its own wagon or lore, and every one is unique. claudia has offered to give me a ride on hers. you have to be very physically fit to do this, don't you? 0h, she's changing the rails across! right!

got the birds flying, the water, the light — this is stunning! so, claudia, when did the lorenbahn start? but there's a catch —

as a tourist, you're not really supposed to be using it, unless you are staying over on the island. did someone show you how to do this? luckily for me, claudia runs a bed and breakfast. mmm, cauliflower! do you feel that it's a shame that people can't come to use it unless they come and stay here? would you want to have more tourists coming?

the lorenbahn wasn't actually built for the residents to get around — it belongs to and is run by germany's state department for coastal defence. wow! well, this is definitely a lot bigger than claudia's! nice! how do you — how does it start? you can give power. can i try? yes. wow, claudia did not let me do any of this! then, you have to accelerate. oh, so the wheel is the accelerator? yes. so, did you have to learn how to ride this for the job?

yes. was it a lot of fun? much fun. much fun! engineer fabien agreed to let me see their work and he is picking me up on his lorenbahn. you have to look there. you have to look there? oh yes, of course. so, there's times when all of this is flooded? yes. the climate change means the flood goes up every year, 3—5mm a year. and we have a change in the timeslot of the floods —

the floods stays longer at times. fabien�*s team has a job on its hands — notjust to defend this land but also to keep the lorenbahn above the encroaching seas. there, you can see the old railway. before we build up the new railway, you could not drive there because everything was underwater. oh, so originally, that was the railway down there and in the last couple of years, you've raised it? yes. in a country better known for its cars and autobahns, people's affection for the trains has been a real eye—opener. now, germans are known for their engineering but what has surprised me is seeing some of their creativity and flair. engineering and a bit of imagination have led to a network like no other.

and if the deutschlandticket brings more people here to see it for themselves, that can only be a good thing. fabien, los geht�*s! hello there. winter weather has well and truly arrived across the country and it's going to stay with us for most of this week. in fact, yes, it will get colder. we'll have some snow showers mostly in the far north, but widespread sharp overnight frosts. now we've got a series of weather fronts sinking south and that's

opening the doorfor this cold air to flood down all the way from the arctic. it's already arrived in scotland. we've got gusts of wind 60 to 70 miles an hour in the northern isles. blizzard conditions here. some snow showers on exposed north coast, but some sunny spells into scotland and northern ireland. a weak weather front sits its way across england and wales. so i've drawn that on. so you can see there's going to be a fair amount of cloud, we'll be chasing cloud around and maybe the odd spot or two of light drizzly rain from it. but here, not quite as cold. five to seven degrees. in the further north, we're looking at three or four at the very best. but that front sinks south. the skies will clear through the night tonight. temperatures fall away. we'll see a few scattered showers running down through the irish sea and some snow showers starting to see snow accumulating in the far north of scotland. temperatures here could get as low as —7. so a cold start first thing to monday morning, but hopefully there will be some sunshine around as well. wind direction still coming from the north. so any exposed coasts at risk of seeing a wintry mix of rain,

sleet and snow across england. but it will be snow in scotland and factor in gusts of winds widely 20 to a0 miles an hour. it really is going to feel raw out there, even if you've got the sunshine. your thermometers may just say a couple of degrees above freezing, but it will probably feel more like —2 to —6 degrees in some areas. so a bitterly cold day on monday. as we go into tuesday, we could see perhaps more enhanced snow from this little weather front that's pushing in from the far northwest. so snow showers continue into the north, but a spell of perhaps more prolonged snow across central and southern scotland. a wintry mix of rain, sleet and snow into northern ireland and northwest england. anywhere south of that will be relatively dry, still cold, but that's where we'll see some sunshine. top temperatures of two to five degrees. how long will this cold weather last? well, wednesday, we could still see a few wintry showers around, but towards next weekend, it gets milder but wetter.

live from london. this is bbc news. a volcano erupts in iceland — the fifth occurrence on the reykjanes peninsula since 2021. this is the scene live in iceland — as molten lava spews from the ground. you can see the volcano they are, live in iceland. 100 days after hamas attacked israel, triggering war in gaza, relatives of the hostages taken on that dayjoin a massive rally in tel aviv.

five migrants die and a fifth is in a critical condition after their boat sank as they tried to cross the channel from france. this is the scene live in copenhagen where in the next hour queen margrethe will officially abdicate. we start this hour in iceland, where there's been a new volcanic eruption near the fishing town of grindavik in the southwest of the country. these are the live pictures which shows the eruption. the mac about one —— the mac two is

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