tv The Travel Show BBC News May 27, 2017 5:30am-6:01am BST
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these are the headlines: police investigating the manchester suicide bombing have arrested two more suspects — bringing the total number of men being held over the attack in the uk to 11. 22 people were killed in monday night's attack. police say they've captured "a large part" of the network involved. egypt's airforce has been in action in libya — targeting jihadists in the east of the country. egypt's president abdel fattah al—sisi said the strikes were in retaliation for a militant attack on a bus carrying coptic christians. us media has made fresh claims about purported links between president trump's transition team and the russian government — the subject of a current fbi investigation. the latest allegations involve the president's son—in—law. bowser the headlines on bbc news. now on bbc news, it is time for the
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travel show. on the travel show this week: gigantic metal elephants. so this is how you make an elephant roar. elephant roars. that was incredible. how one tweet saved a rhino. and exploring london's secret tube network. the top speed of one of our mail trains was about 35mph. that's pretty fast. we start this week on france's river loire. along its banks, you'll find some of the country's
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most impressive history. a chateau there were visited by the likes ofjoan of arc, leonardo da vinci and eleanor of aquitaine. but we sent keith wallace to the city of nantes to find out how the region's industrial past is being used to inspire a new generation. just over a decade ago, this little island in the loire was a scrap of wasteland close to the centre of nantes. a three—mile stretch of brownfield site, home only to the odd artist who had gone there in search of peace and quiet. but it didn't stay peaceful for very long. in 2007 this, the great elephant, began taking its daily constitutional. people came from all over to hitch a ride in its belly. and, as it prepares to celebrate
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its 10th birthday, they still come. so this is how you make an elephant roarfrom inside its body. elephant roars. laughter. that was incredible. it's so low—tech. you can feel the whole thing pull against your body as you're doing it. this is the thing that i love. all of these switches are twitching every time the elephant‘s moving. it's so organic, it's incredible. the elephant rides form part of the first huge push to turn the fortunes of nantes around. the industry that had recently departed had left a huge ugly scar just a stone's throw from the historic centre. it's a crazy project when you think about it,
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when they proposed to the city to create an elephant that will carry people on his back and go around on the isle of nantes. i mean, you have to ask money for that, you can imagine that people were quite surprised but the fact is that they managed to reach the challenge and to make it. i mean, there are loads of cities that have old industrial quarters that have been taken over by arty types but this is different. this is about rivets and metal and wood and workmanship and for a very good reason. they built ships here. in the mid—1970s, 60,000 people made their living on this island but the ships started getting bigger and bigger and the loire was too narrow this far upstream to accommodate them. 30 years ago, in 1987, the last yard closed.
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these days, the old buildings are occupied, notjust by the elephant, but by a whole menagerie. francois. you're in a spider! all the animals began life inside the head of francois and he still gets a kick out of the drama. she waken. she wakes up. she wakes up! how long did it take to build? 0h, six months. can i move the head? too many play it like... with feeling, you understand? with feeling. feel it, please. feel the spider. and these are all dockyards, aren't they, and they still feel like it, that's intentional. but there's another influence, the adventure writerjules verne
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was a son of nantes and his book, 20,000 leagues under the sea inspired the island's gothic carousel. quite high up. yeah. do we control how high it is? no, we can't. we are on the top level precisely and under we have the deep sea and then the level of the sea and at every level you have different machines. the idea is that you make a trip and to dream basically. these will flap. so activate. flying as it goes up. this one is flapping now. no, we can do it any time. we can do what we like.
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yeah. we are on holiday! since the carousel was built, it's possible that nantes skyline has become one of the most distinctive in europe and it's about to get even weirder. a 45—metre tall artificial tree complete with mechanical herons will offer tourists flights. building work on that is scheduled to begin soon with a finish date estimated for 2021. keith wallace in the french city of nantes. and if you're thinking about heading there any time soon, here's the travel show‘s top tips. the voyage of nantes is an urban trail that winds several miles through the city taking in dozen of artistic and historical sites. the distinctive green line will take you around all sorts of treasures, some of which are created especially
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for the summer and many of which are free. we have about a0 artists everywhere in town with great installation, follow the green line, it's kind of for children to discover the city with their parents. at the end ofjune the museum of fine arts reopens after a six—year closure. it's been redeveloped and expanded and will become one of the region's largest galleries. treasures include works by picasso, kandinsky and max ernst. if you want a glimpse of some of the region's most important chateaux, head a couple of hours up the river to places like chambord, amboise, loire. they're not only historically important, they‘ re also beautiful to look at. and finally, if you fancyjoining in the great elephant‘s birthday party, it's being held onjune 30th. the venue is across the river at the old quarry where the heron tree will one day be built. entry from 8.30pm is free.
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next this week, london by night. the latest in our series looking at what the city gets up to after dark. this time we're off to meet baker street's nocturnal florist. we are 21w, so it never close. yeah, we don't have keys. we can never shut down, if something goes wrong. my name kaleem and i work at flower station as a night shift supervisor. it's used to be a petrol station about 13 years ago but since then it's a flower show. our customers at night are kind of, you know, especially what i believe lovers. when they fight with each other
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one thing can fix that relationship, it's flowers. one time somebody came aam, he said that a search on google, only one shop open 21w, let's go there and fix it. the reason i am buying flowers in the middle of the night, i have finished my shift as a taxi driver, it's my wife's birthday tomorrow and hopefully this will be a nice surprise for her. yeah, i was looking at the purple ones, as well. sure. perhaps this one here. 24/7 really helps people in australia and america and different parts of the world. when they want to be afternoon, everything going to be closed here. celebrities, sometimes they come and they choose their own flowers, they feel like they are in their own heaven or in back gardens. in centre of london you can never have that. we don't print out any letter
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and send it to customer, all of our cards are handwritten. we have a special team. i am the one at night time who writes letters if any owner comes. at night it is peaceful, everybody is sleeping but we are working. for me flowers are everything. i was thinking if i have a girl, maybe girl i will give her a name dahlia. it's a flower name, it's one of my favourite, dahlia. i think flowers are the one thing which can connect you with the nature. stay with us because coming up on the travel show: a neat way to book new york hotel rooms by the minute. and i'm in london exploring the secret tube network that's about to be opened to the public for the first time.
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you're going to get a dodgy back if you're walking down here all day. the travel show, your essential guide, wherever you're headed. time now for trend and travel, your monthly mash—up of the best travel—related stories, snaps and videos online. a few months ago we met the tiletsons. they launched a huge social media campaign to find one lucky nanny who would join them on a once—in—a—lifetime trip around the world. well, almost 25,000 applications later, they found their new travel companion. it was such an honour, to have so much attention on us and so many people saying yeah, take me. the lucky nanny is from texas, usa. i called them and they were like yeah, we wanted to see how your week has been and derek goes, can we switch over to facetime.
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and i am like oh, obviously i have the job, there was no way they're going to facetime me to tell me i won't do it, that'sjust rude! the group set off injuly and will be blogging about their adventures. travel packing for your next trip? this kickstarter project has a solution. the unique travel set packs seven pieces of women's clothing down into a single lightweight bag with 30 different combinations. the project hit its funding target earlier this month with a rollout planned for later in the year. off the red eye? in need of a quick rest? recharge is an app that lets you book luxury hotel rooms by the minute. it'sjust launched in new york offering customers a chance to use the rooms in the daytime. perfect for a shower and a nap. but be warned, if you're still there when housekeeping arrives, it's a $250 fine.
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so don't forget your alarm clock! and finally, one tweet managed to save the life of an endangered rhino. after reading about a sumatran rhino with a dangerous abscess, adam posted this call for help. i immediately tweeted at saving the survivors, and they put together an international crew of vets that performed a highly successful operation. the rhino has now recovered and is living at a sanctuary in malaysia. the sumatran rhino is one of the most endangered species on earth. there are fewer than 100 of them left and if we're going to save them from extinction every single last one counts. thanks to everyone who sent us their pictures this month using the hashtag travel tuesday. here are some of my favourites. richard was in hong kong when he snapped the daily light show. and no prizes for guessing where this was taken, a famous landmark.
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don't forget to check our twitter and facebook feeds for loads of extra special travel show content. now let's look at the travel videos clocking up the views online. surf's up! with the european summer fast approaching, we ride the waves with some of the internet‘s surfing stars. they're few and far between. they surf these waves a couple of times a year but when we do, it's well worth it. in my opinion, what makes a great surfing film? something really trippy. we're just having fun. you got to go for it with what you got. don't sweat too much. you need to know your way around the ocean. it's not for the faint—hearted. and if you don't know
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what you're doing out there, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble. and if you see anything you think we should know about, don't forget to get in touch. let's finish this week deep underneath london. mind the gap... final preparations are under way to open to the public an underground train network most londoners will never even have heard of. until 2003, it belonged to the royal mail. its tunnels snaked between and alongside the regular tube, the one that we all know about. i've been told to come to liverpool street station, the capital's gateway to the east of england, to see it for myself. this really is the bowels of liverpool street. i think there's a set of stairs i am meant to go down. yeah, right here.
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that's better. you can actually hear the old tube trains kind of going down so we must be at that level. the station mirrors its counterpart on the central line just above us. itjust lacks that nice tiling and polish. hello, is it ray? yeah, it is. hi, how are you. i am henry. nice to meet you. it's amazing, isn't it. it's almost like stepping back in time, isn't it? it's pretty much how it was when we shut in 2003. nothing much has changed. ray's worked down here ever since it was decommissioned. he is one of three making sure the tunnels are dry and safe. how would it all work? after a letter is received at a sorting office if it needed to be transferred to the railways or another sorting office it would be bagged up and sent down
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to us and our trains ran it from east london at white chapel to paddington in the west and it was a loop and we would send trains round and they go continuously go around 22 hours a day with a six—minute gap between trains. to the depths we go. this is the under—platform area. yeah. this was the 150 volt power supplies for powering the trains around the stations. if i hold that up there you can work the handle. pull it down. it's heavy, isn't it? if i release that coil it will drop out. wow! not for the faint—hearted. now that there are no trains running through here it's safe to walk through. just down here? yeah, just down here.
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well, the whole railway is six—and—a—half miles long but there's 22 miles of track laid because it's double track and sidings. it was dug by hand. these are built on the hill, so as the train approached it could naturally decelerate. and as the train departed it could naturally accelerate. you're going to get a dodgy back if you're walking down here all day. you could develop the mail rail walk. the mail rail walk! this was a 19805 mail train. right. still smaller than i thought they would be. they're sort of half—size, we use a two—foot gauge so it's quite narrow and they were unmanned, so they were automatic. the top speed of one of our mail trains was about 35mph. 35mph. the top. the average speed was much lower. that's fairly perky, though, it is pretty fast. mail rail was very busy, there were lots of people here, lots of differentjobs going on. it was a noisy environment with trains coming in and out. lifts coming up and down and people pushing mail containers around, it was quite a lively environment.
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and very soon paying customers will be able to see this for themselves. in the next few weeks, a brand new postal museum will hope here at mount pleasant in central london. they're actually moving all their archives to a purpose built centre just over the road and the highlights will be put on display. oh, wow. look at that. that is amazing. so what is this room for? this is traditionally the heart of the network. this is where all the locomotives would have been worked on and this will be the centre of the post room museum experience. sorry to point out the obvious, but what is this thing? so, this is one of the new locomotives. the centre piece will be a ride through the tunnels below on the modern equivalent ofa mailtrain. push that back. 0h, right.
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ok, so this is where the driver will sort of sit and co—ordinate. exactly. 0ne train driverand one guard per train. it's a huge project so there must have been some challenges that you guys came across, what were the biggest? we started off very much from the point of view of it can be done and being honest we probable thought there was a reason it couldn't be done. and as we got further through the development i think we realised kind of how much the public wanted the tunnels to be opened up again. so do you think the british public find an affinity with the postal service here? certainly hopeful so, yeah. the collections that we hold represent 500 years of serving the public really. and constantly innovating and constantly changing and certainly in terms of post offices they've been the glue that's often held the community together. while the ride is clearly the main attraction, the routes of royal mail go all the way back to henry viii. so the archivers have some rich pickings to choose from as they assemble the new exhibition. the post room museum
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is scheduled to open injuly. i'm afraid that's all the time we have for this week. butjoin us next week when: i head to istanbul to take in the sights and sounds of a city that combines two continents and thousands of years of history. along with some of best turkish baths in the world. with a good scrub you get a bit of water on the head... 0h, cold water! catch that if you can. but from me, henry golding, and the rest of the travel show team here deep underground in london, it's goodbye. hello.
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with a bank holiday weekend now upon us, we are set to see a bit of a change in this hot, dry weather, that has been with us for the past few days. here was the scene on friday, in moray, captured by one of our weather watchers. we will have similar conditions to start the bank holiday weekend. a humid start. more sunshine, but we are expecting to see some thunderstorms disrupting the sunshine. now, during saturday morning, we've got this frontal system, this area of low pressure, moving from the south and west, bring showers and thunderstorms across many parts of the country. for northern ireland, northern england, right down towards the south—east, through saturday morning, we will see the showers. during the afternoon, they will spread a little bit further north across the country. they are bumping into the warm air in place. 30 degrees or so across northern and north—eastern scotland. so lots of fuel for these big showers and the thunderstorms. could be some hail mixed in. this is a:00pm
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on saturday afternoon. so thundery showers likely across central scotland, northern ireland, into northern england. to the south of that, a little fresher than it has been. we may still see temperatures in one or two spots up to around 28 degrees. so lots of sunny weather on the cards still, through the course of saturday. but we've got those showers across northern parts of the country as we move through saturday evening and overnight, so the odd rumble of thunder here. but on into sunday morning, clearer skies across southern parts of the country. and it will feel a little more comfortable for sleeping through the early hours of sunday morning, so temperatures typically down to 13 or 1a degrees. with a risk of some heavy downpours at times on saturday and late on sunday, there could be flooding on the road. perhaps some spray around, some poor visibility, if you have got plans to be heading off for half—term holidays. now, during sunday, we've got the next batch of showers working in from the english channel. on sunday, you could see a chance of catching an odd thunderstorm. pretty hit—and—miss,
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and actually many parts of the country having a drier day, with temperatures between about 16 and 26 degrees or so. but a chance on sunday night and then on to bank holiday monday, that we will see some of the showers becoming a bit more extensive. some uncertainty about their exact positioning. looks like, again, they will work their way gradually north and eastwards across the country as we had through bank holiday monday. they will be hit and miss. not everywhere will get a heavy or thundery shower. and it is a return to some sunny skies and the south. definitely not as hot as we get to bank holiday monday. a cooler and a fresher outlook as we head through into the course of tuesday and wednesday. have a good weekend. hello. this is breakfast, with charlie stayt and naga munchetty. three more arrests are made by detectives in manchester investigating monday's terror attack. this as police across the uk mount a major operation to protect the public over the bank holiday weekend. arrangements for 1,300 events have been re—assessed. all 22 victims have now been named,
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most recently tributes have been paid to 15—year—old megan hurley from merseyside. this the scene in the centre of manchester where people are still coming to remember the victims. ariana grande has announced she'll return to the city for a benefit gig, telling her fans "we won't let hate win." good morning. it's saturday 27 may. also today, it's cup final day.
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