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tv   The Travel Show  BBC News  May 30, 2021 1:30am-2:01am BST

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1—0 in an all—british final. it's the second time the london team has been crowned the best club in europe. over 16,000 supporters were allowed into the stadium in portugal to watch the match. demonstrations have taken place around the world to show solidarity with the people of belarus. many have called for the release of the belarusian journalist roman protasevich, who was detained along with his girlfriend. the plane he was flying on was forced to land in minsk last weekend. environment officials in sri lanka have warned the country is facing one of the worst ecological crises in its history following a naval container fire off the country's coast. thousands of military personnel have been deployed to clean up micro plastic pollution washed ashore, since the fire last week.
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let's look at the latest coronavirus figures. there have been 3,398 new cases and 7 deaths reported in the past 2a hours. infections have risen slowly over the past week with an average of 3,067 infections every day. in the vaccine rollout more than 197,000 people have received a first vaccine dose in the last 2a hours, meaning more than 39 million people have now had their firstjab — that's more than 74% of the adult population. just over a14,000 had their second dose in the past 2a hours, meaning almost 25 million people — or 47% of the adult population is now fullyvaccinated. well, the numbers also show more than half of all people in their 30s in england have now been vaccinated in the last fortnight, including the duchess of cambridge. she got herjab
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at london's science museum, a short walk from her home at kensington palace. 0n social media she thanked all those who played a part in the vaccine rollout. now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show. coming up on this week's show. my very own spacesuit. i look ready, ifeel ready, i'm ready. you hear the echoing gunshots. tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year, so that's good, as i head into my unheated church room for the night. this is an incredible . experience on an old, disused railway line, very shuddery, - but exhilarating!
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hello and welcome to the travel show, coming to you this week from tokyo, home to the bullet train, arguably the world's best sushi and capsule hotels, the uniquelyjapanese place to rest your head. but you also might end up bumping it if you wake up in the middle of the night. and whilst we wait to get back on the road again, this week, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the strangest places we've stayed on the show over the years. and while they might not be as cramped as a capsule hotel, they've left their mark and memories in other ways. well, let's kick off this week with a trip that mike made to bosnia back in 2018, to the city of sarajevo, which saw so much fighting
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and bloodshed in the �*90s as the former yugoslavia tore itself apart. mike met a man there that used memories from that time to create a unique but traumatic place to stay. lying in a balkan valley, and studded with ancient mosques, synagogues and churches, it's fair to say that bosnia and herzegovina's stunning capital, sarajevo, is often unjustly overlooked by tourists. gunfire. 25 years ago, this was a very different place. bosnian serbs sat in the hills and laid siege to sarajevo as the break—up of yugoslavia led to nationalism and inter—ethnic violence. 10,000 people died in this city, in some of the most horrific fighting europe's seen in modern times. it's cast a long, distressing shadow and in an attempt to help me understand what it was like being there
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back then, i've been sent here to a hostel in the city centre. hello. 01, nice to meet you. 01 is your name? yes, it's my father's war codename. and this is the war hostel? yes, it's just this way. welcome. wow. inside, 01 attempts to simulate the experience of living in sarajevo during the siege. it's quite something different, isn't it? it is definitely something different. there are gunfire sounds that never get switched off. electricity is run from a car battery. the windows are covered, and you sleep on the floor on a rectangular foam. underneath the hostel, there's a collection of relics from the war — paraphernalia salvaged from 01's walks on what used to be the front line. and there's the bunker, a recreation of the front—line facility once used by 01's father, from fighting
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up in the hills. we're getting ready for a night in the bunker, 01 is in here preparing the room for us, and he has reinforced the point that it's going to be quite intense. we can hear the echoing gunshots much louder down here. can see the smoke already. not many people choose to sleep down here, as the experience is pretty intense. distant echoing gunfire. one of the rules that 01 has for the bunker is no timekeeping devices. i had to forfeit my watch and my cell phone before he left. so i have no idea
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what time it is. they left me in here about 11.30pm, maybe it's been an hour. a couple of the sounds they play, whenever they sound, justjolts me. distant rumbling explosions and gunfire. well, the night's been a blur of pseudo half—rest, where i'm not really quite asleep, not really quite awake. 0k, well, there's some daylight. which i guess is a good sign. don't exactly feel like a fresh daisy right now, but the world seems
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to be awake. i take my leave of 01 in the morning, but one question has been bothering me overnight. is this all in good taste? well, somebody could think that we're playing games or war games, or something like that. it's not the point. the point is to just give you a small glimpse of what it was like for people who were forced to live through this, like me and my family, people who were forced to go on the frontline, how there was no choice. well, thank you so much. that was a night i will rememberfor the rest of my life. thank you very much for staying here. really appreciate it. thank you for thinking of us. thanks, 01. mike reporting from bosnia back in 2018. well, the year before that,
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christa got a slightly more restful night, sleeping inside a church deep in the english countryside. she was trying a spot of champing, or church camping, although something tells me it was the right location but wrong time of year. let's see how she got on. here, in this barely used norman church, is my bed for the night. so it's very reassuring, walking through a graveyard to get to your accommodation. i'm here for a spot of champing — church camping. it's available at 12 historic venues around the country, beautiful ancient sites that are rarely, if ever, used as places of mass worship any more. a very big hotel room. money raised from letting champers like me stay means the crumbling buildings
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are spared a slow, inevitable decline. so i'm keen to give this champing a go. where will i be sleeping? so you'll be sleeping possibly in the executive pews, because it's meant to be the warmest part of the church. i'd expect nothing less! it's good that it's a box pew, because it stops the draughts. and so here you are. there are a few nice touches here — that good old staple, the tea tray, and a little basket of goodies with biscuits and wine. i mean, it's only 6pm and it's already cold — safe to say champing is usually more of a summer activity. at least the pub next door looks like it's going to be warm. why would anyone want to go champing? because you get to spend such a lot of time in truly amazing historic buildings. the way people usually visit historic churches, and i've seen it, is that they go
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to the door, they pop their head round, they go, ooh, there's a font, there's an altar, there's a very nice stained glass, that's very pretty, and then they leave. and what you miss by doing that is you don't get to dwell in the place and really feeling for it. somebody at the pub just told me that tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year, so that's good, as i head into my unheated church room for the night. owl hoots. i've got my airbed. sleeping bag.
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so i'vejust got into bed, and it's quite comfy, actually. quite cosy, given how cold it is, and i can see my breath. i'm going to try to go to sleep now. and try and forget that i'm entirely surrounded by graves. it is quite cold, notably quite cold. i think there's a jolly good reason the champing is usually only done during the summer. because these old churches don't have nice central heating, but it's oddly peaceful, actually. it's cold but peaceful. deciding to come champing in the dead of winter was a really terrible idea. birds tweet.
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morning. hi! how are you doing? i thought you might want some coffee. you are my favourite person in the world. brilliant, and some bacon sandwiches as well. you, you...welcome! how did you get on? oh, yeah, it was great. i mean, it's the middle of winter, when you don't normally run champing! i was going to say, there's a reason why we run champing from spring to the end of summer. but how about the atmosphere, the experience? i tell you what, i was surprised, actually, because i'm quite a scaredy cat. but really, the second i sort of actually settled down to sleep... it's really peaceful, it's really lovely. you just sort of, you know, there's no sound from outside, and the atmosphere was surprisingly quiet. sort of calm. and all through the night, i had no moment of being alarmed.
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the champing season starts around mid—march, a far more sensible time of the year to try this. christa trying a spot of out—of—season champing back in 2017. stay with us, because still to come on the travel show: we look back at the time rajan spent a night at a station with no passengers, here injapan. so let's see where the night train takes me. goodnight. and lucy gets a taste of sleeping on mars, deep in a cave in spain. i've not been in the top bunk since i was eight years old, so i'm not going to lie, i'm actually really excited about getting in the top bunk. now, when it comes to strange places that the travel show team have stayed over the years, there is one particular stand—out. it's that time that lucy went to spain tojoin a group of scientists looking to recreate life on mars deep inside a spanish cave.
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and it would have beenjust plain rude to turn down an invite to a sleepover. so, clearly, this is not a space shuttle, but mars, for the purpose of this exercise, is going to be in a remote cave in arredondo, and i have a feeling my sci—fi fantasies are about to become unlocked. the idea is to simulate how hard it will be to survive on another planet, with the barest of tools. this particular expedition is just for the night and is geared towards scientists who'll be doing experiments as if they're on the red planet. wow. my god! down we go. but before any exploration, the team need to change. this is the bit i've actually been waiting for, my very own space suit, although it's a lot thinner than i thought.
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i thought it was going to be like this giant space suit that i was going to find a little bit unwieldy, but i think i can handle that. in fact, i think i've got an outfit like this. i look ready, ifeel ready, i'm ready. just one final touch. i'm ready for my ascent into martian land. i'm a little bit scared too! laughter. how's this? laughter. our aim is to get to ariz, our base, where we will be spending the night. it's anticipated that the first colonists to mars will also have to live underground in caves or lava tubes to avoid interstellar radiation. and there's no time to waste
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on the experiments. ok, so i'm collecting some samples of the water that's trickling from above, it's really quite cool. so the guys have just made quite an interesting discovery. they've discovered a rock showing signs of photosynthesis, which is strange because there's no light down here. so this is a pretty incredible breakthrough for these guys. finally, we make it to ariz. and it's a bit of a squeeze in the decompression chamber. but the team are immediately analyzing their samples. we have a table...
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the pod is set up with everything to meet your basic needs. and after all that work, it's time for dinner. couscous with chicken. wild berry yoghurt. they all sound the same. i'm going for one of my favorite dishes — bolognese. the water's in, give it a stir, leave for ten minutes... it looks a little bit like plastic! but i'm so hungry. that is actually quite nice. whilst the others finish up dinner, i sneak out to find out more about the project. also, any excuse to get suited up. one of the goals is to extend
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the stays in the cave to see how people cope. very soon, we'll need teams of scientists and engineers and people from all areas of knowledge and science, spending one month, several months, more than a year in this station. more than a year? wow. when you're talking about isolating people for several months, or more than one year, there are so many things that come in that would be so useful for future space exploration. this experience isn't cheap. for non—scientists, it's about £5,000 for the 30—day experience, which includes preparation, training and about three days in the cave... ..i mean mars. so this is where i'm sleeping tonight. it's the top bunk of a bunk bed. i've not been in the top bunk since i was eight years old, so i'm not going to lie, i'm actually really excited
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about getting in the top bunk. i've got a sleeping bag, so it's like a really cool sci—fi sleepover over with all my scientist buddies! although i'm not sure what time they get up in the morning. i have a feeling it's going to be very, very, very early. in space, they say that you can't hear anyone scream, so in astroland, i'm really hoping you can't hear anyone snore. lucy trying to get some sleep in that mars mock—up in spain early last year. well, our next film is from right here injapan, where, in 2018, rajan headed north to the island of hokkaido, where he met a man with a lifelong passion for railways. and he got to stay in a station with no passengers and no scheduled trains.
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i'd arranged to stay in a unique guest house. tomioka worked on trains most of his life. timetable. when he stopped working on the trains, he restored an old disused station house back to its former glory. so this used to be a railway line here? in contrast to the japanese mainland, much of the urban life in hokkaido first developed around the rail infrastructure. some of the old local train routes closed with the loss of industry. but for some people, like tomioka, this is not the end of the line.
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this is an incredible experience on an old, disused railway line. very shuddery but exhilarating, absolutely exhilarating! it's great, really good. it's a world away from this country's high—speed bullet trains. but what a way to experience the nature this island is famous for.
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i've got my sleeper carriage berth, so let's see where the night train takes me. goodnight. well, i hope you've enjoyed our look back through the archives, and it's managed to satisfy your wanderlust. let's hope we can all start travelling again soon. in the meantime, keep an eye out for us next time when... as the uk starts to open up
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to tourists, we begin an epic journey across the country in an all—electric take on a classic british motor. to kick off, ade�*s in the scottish highlands where he meets the conservationist saving britain's largest national park. what we're trying to do is restore natural processes. so we want to see the forest continue to march right up the hills. and if we're able to come back in a couple of hundred years, we'd hopefully see some trees on the skyline. and it looks absolutely stunning. it is. it's beautiful. it's a fantastic place to work. well, that one looks like a good one. i hope you canjoin us for that, but until next time, from all of the travel show team here in tokyo, it's goodbye.
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hello, there. many places saw some warm sunshine on saturday but we did have a bit more cloud across northern and western areas. but through sunday and into bank holiday monday we should see more in the way of sunshine, so it will feel warmer across the board. now high pressure is dominating the scene but its orientation, where it's sitting, is allowing a little bit of low cloud and mist to roll in off the north sea, and that will affect northern and eastern coasts at times. but it will tend to burn back to the coast through the day. the odd isolated shower could develop here and there. we could see a little bit of high cloud across southern britain into the afternoon. but it's the low cloud and mist affecting the northern isles, perhaps down in towards north—east england, across in towards coastal east anglia, which could affect the temperatures. close to the coast, around the mid teens celsius, but you have to head further inland to see those values reach around the low 20s celsius with a good deal of sunshine around. you can see the odd shower
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dotted across parts of scotland and northern ireland, too. these will fade away during sunday night and then we'll see that low cloud and mist roll back into some eastern areas, perhaps even in towards the south—east england. further west that you are, the skies will tend to stay clear. so very little change in the pressure pattern as we head on into bank holiday monday. this weather front is kept at bay, higher pressure towards the north—east there. so it could start quite grey and cool across some eastern and south—eastern areas, but again the sunshine will get going on that cloud, burning it back to the coast. could see a little bit of fair weather cloud bubbling up again. otherwise we should see more sunshine around and it will be a little bit warmer — those temperatures reaching 23, maybe 2a or 25 celsius in the warmest spots. now for tuesday, i think this is the peak of this warm spell. it will be a dry and sunny day for most. again, a bit of fairweather cloud just building up through the day but i think we could see temperatures reach around 25, maybe even 26 degrees in the warmest spots. a little bit warmer, as well, across north sea coasts as we pick up more of a southerly breeze
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on tuesday, but then we'll start to see a change. from wednesday onwards, we could be looking at this area of low pressure moving up from biscay, it will bring a line of showers and thunderstorms, particularly across southern and western areas, and it will also introduce something slightly cooler and fresher as we move towards the end of the week — but that will be most noticeable across more northern and western areas. that's it, see you later.
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welcome to bbc news, i'm mark lobel. our top stories. it's heaven for the blues as chelsea fans celebrate their team winning europe's champions league — beating manchester city 1—0. dozens of protests around the world to show solidarity with the people of belarus. more than 100 macaque monkeys are rescued from a smuggling gang operating in the jungles of thailand. and british prime minister borisjohnson is reported to have married his fiancee carrie symonds in a secret ceremony.

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