africa on the roof. stories about people making a difference in shaping their nation. and their continent africa on the move and stories of down to motivational change makers taking their destinies into their own hands. d.w. multimedia series from africa. d.w. dot com africa on the move. from. the. welcome to the show today we're traveling all over europe from transylvania to scandinavia let's cool off with beast topics. cold blooded

the sinister world of count dracula. cool moves spend often is a self-taught dance and from germany. and chile climbs a unique family home in northern norway. mania it was built in thirteen seventy eight on the eastern border of the transylvania region and served as a fortress and customs post it was also the residence of the last king and queen of romania but most notably brown casa was made famous by the irish rites of bram stoker in his novel dracula my colleague meghan lee went on a discovery tour in romania to find out how much of the dracula story is based on truth. this is brand castle in romania otherwise known as dracula's castle it's one of romania's major landmarks and tourist destinations located in the small town of bran some two hundred kilometers north of the capital bucharest

people flock here from all over the world to catch a glimpse into the gruesome world of vampires. after a very long journey i have finally arrived at brand castle here in romania and this place boasts six hundred forty years of history but it is most well known as the home of count accurate blood sucking count of transylvania now although i know this story is based on fiction i have come well prepared i have my garlic to ward off any potential spirits and vampires and have my rosary just in case part let's discover those castles is true. when i got in there's any tax penalty there. as i enter i wonder if

count dracula ever invited his victims to dine here. so as to let him tell me how much of the tracks that the story is actually true in related to this castle. you know the lads and there is a small amount of true well dropped out as a historical character getting leaks that he was the prince all by off paid out and not of that it was either no for his character and for his habit of paid so you see he really existed and bram stoker the irish novelist that drove the novel dr heard about his story from hungary and teach a friend of his so he took our princess story enter. as for me i think that the one of the famous them high but in fact stoker never visited romania or brand council his book is based on a description of the castle and in illustration of vailable to him at the time but

what about vlad the impaler was he ever here during his reign of terror the council does indeed have examples of medieval torture methods used back then so as to know what is this thing in. the version from there that. this is one of the first mechanized torture instruments they were used on suspected witches thieves traitors and the like. you have to make it. so yeah that we don't want to do that the real dracula used torture to secure loyalty from his subjects one of his favorite methods for getting rid of his enemies was to impale them but means and use their real drop of blood. and let us say about him is that for us rather than lenient people he's a hero and we are still waiting for him to come back rumor has it he was only

imprisoned in brand castle for a short time flat dracula actually reigned from. one hundred kilometers south of grand this is where the ruins of his quarter located not far from here in fourteen fifty nine he infamously had several hundred enemies impaled in what is now known as the sunday feast. if we were here. six years she lived here and. you can see that we have surface problems but phantom or fiction it's brand castle and the story of dracula the vampire that seem to interest tourists the most. do you think it's. kerry here it's a bit scary especially the torture. this is the most daring i mean this goes and it goes its everlasting popularity to bram stoker. so my tour of bring castle is

coming to an end and my impression of this place is that it's really just full of history it's really not that scary although i don't think i would want to be here after dark and just in case there are any evil spirits to ward off i will keep this garlic necklace clothes that they had but it's time to say goodbye now from dracula's castle. and i make my way out of brown before it gets dark when the vampires begin their nightly. well back to the light of day a light hearted news roundup of all the goings on in europe i'm for your marks express and this time around we start off in switzerland. to mark national day and on all this the first switzerland is frying an extra large black hole in the out. of the well known white cross on a red background music eighty by eighty square meters and it dawns mounts centers

to shoot five way seven hundred kilograms and took six hundred dollars to start. each evening it was rolled out for safekeeping. in an entire dining room is going on too long starting in frankfurt that. it was designed in the early one nine hundred seventeen find french one dairy and stomping to for the german federal bank. until now the cafeteria had been reserved for high level bank executives and i guess. the building is now scheduled for renovations and the dining room is to be moved to frankfort state and museum. after that it will be under. thanks let's remember from the sounds of humpty doo in paris . the. german designer do e.g. koran is turning ninety on thursday his approach to blinding form influenced west

german product design during the nineteen seventy's and eighty's aerodynamic streamlining using his trademark especially for cars born in berlin and he still designs but for more than two decades now he's lived mainly in china. happy birthday to the region. now a days many a budding young artist dreams of becoming an online star spent often chose a more conventional career he pursued a degree in computer science and casually uploaded a video of himself dancing on you tube after a while he started getting offers from around the world requesting his dancing skills his unique style is what caught the viewers attention he calls it neo swing and we met him in his hometown of heinz back near the dutch border to have a well. sure

c. span our turn lives near the western german city office for a long time dancing was just a hobby for him now it's his bread and. when autumn was studying computer science he wanted to exercise to make up for the long hours spent sitting at his computer in twenty thirteen he shot a video on his mobile phone if himself dollars sing in his living room posted it on you tube and became an internet sensation soon an offer came from the united states . it was only after four million views that i even got the first comment on my video and i got an invitation to los angeles and i just wrote it off thinking it was a joke i just couldn't be truthful so this wasn't barton was asked to shoot a commercial. at los angeles airport he was met by

a chauffeur and driven to a luxury hotel on move day oh trying. to remember the first night i ordered a muffin cost around twenty dollars if the top i thought i can afford although there's nothing until it's got a slice of. cotton cools the style of dance he's created for me oh so well. that the idea of doing it for money made him nervous. because first it was intimidating because i'd never done it in front of anyone else before this. so i danced in front of a camera in my room but that's not the same thing as dancing in front of others because of course they're expecting something from go off. he was given as much freedom as new for us he tapped in the privacy of his own living room.

to watch the shoes in the u.s. would be a one off he wasn't making any money with his online video is the only ones to profit from the millions of hits where the songwriter whose job it is often made us this and they said no those are our revenues we've got the rights i'm good with you i couldn't make any money from you tube. so i thought i'll finish my studies and get a regular job he's done in shop. although he stopped posting videos he still kept getting more office for commercial shoots a german investment bank an italian phone company and various brazilian companies wanted spencer downs for their camera and. now he's got a manager at times even a choreographer. towns in italy people even recognize him on the street. back in his home town in germany things are a lot calmer i will vanish when i turn on the music and start dancing i forget everything

around me so i'm. just alone with the music he was equal mish. for these much. well it seems dreams do come true and we now this is a family in norway who managed to build their dream house against all odds they wanted to build a sustainable home made from clay but in the arctic climates in the far north of the country proved to be a bit tricky so they used a unique technique to make it happen and i'm now shielded from the elements we took a closer look at as part of our ongoing series your marks deluxe. anyone who sees this glass dome for the first time might think a u.f.o. has landed. the unusual house stands on a small island with some four hundred inhabitants in northern norway just above the

arctic circle. the glass dome resembles an outsized greenhouse. this house right on the sea fulfilled one norwegian family's lifelong dream. we wanted to live a sustainable life we wanted the house and the lives that weren't. that wouldn't harm us like the help our health and wouldn't harm their. it's the year to further family our ben young men who worked on a salmon farm whose wife ingrid a nurse and their four children. the family gave much thought to how and where they wanted to live and chose the island of sand her new area. we have our roots here a family. lives here and. we grew up here on this island and i don't feel like i have the need to escape from it. it's. it's all.

a specialized british company setup the glasto it's made up of three hundred sixty panes of glass reaching seven and a half metres high the house provides a family of six with a total of two hundred forty square metres of living space. a generous amount of word create a warm and cozy atmosphere on. the kitchen living room five bedrooms and two bathrooms a spread over three floors. we built it with our hands saw all the shapes and. and different parts of the house you. remember how it was built and who did what. in you made this part and i made that there. so it's. it makes it quite personal there. the house is heated by a wood burning stove and

a few solar panels they supply hot water for the kitchen mass and the under floor heating. waste water is treated and used to irrigate the greenhouse plants. the glass dome protects the house so it could be built entirely from natural materials. the materials that we build a house inside the greenhouse was definitely our goal to make us clean as possible to make it to bio degradable everywhere we could so we use wood and straw sand and clay mostly and avoid any plastic products an important space for our family is the one hundred ninety square metre garden. given the long winters and harsh climate gar not as many advantages. well in the arctic so for us it's kind of hard to be able to to

grow food. but when we have this green house around the house and spottable for us to. start early. i have a longer growing season. and i really love who in my own so this makes it possible. when a family decided to venture a new beginning far away from the city their son name played a key role yet to forget means follow of the heart and that's precisely what these six norwegians are doing. our next report takes us to the city of love paris is known for its bistro culture these cozy restaurants serve a small menu of food and drinks in typically modest settings and the cornerstone of

every good parisian bistro is the classic bistro chat one company still manufactures these study pieces of furniture in france keeping the cafe culture alive. may we present the quintessence of saff levy from the maze on getting the piece tranches weld famous since nineteen twenty observers will notice the weapon patterns on the chess match the orning after all everything has to be just right when you are sitting down for coffee some appetizers or maybe even i think. it's a few says they're typically parisian their last twenty five years has them so it's true i don't associate in america is well known in paris my history these chants of people who come to see these things. is that what it is it was you know everyone wonders how did the french do it order how do they afford the luxury of taking time

out for coffee that's what a bistro is. or is he an institution. how does it originated in the late nineteenth century when paris his major boulevards were developing and the first café terraces were opening back then the right time for the chairs came from the colonists. the meson that the factory is just outside paris the only manufacture a still produces all its chance in france and by hand. the retina still hands bent the traditional way but the seats are now woven from natural ptolemy of ability it's just. we all over one hundred patterns in thirty different colors it's like that that each cafe can order its own design with its own color combinations. sadly in the past twenty years half of paris has bistros have closed. nowadays more and more people are ordering

a quick lunch they can take back to the office. yes it's affected us as well by receiving a few orders from paris the beast rose are being replaced by launched chains fashion boutique so fast food restaurant. well the council saying. that kony is beast somewhat often around the glare so they are far from being a thing of the past. and finally round off the show with today's installment of our series island dreams if you ever travel to venice and it's really we have a top tip for you there are dozens of tiny islands in the venetian lagoon two of the most popular. and morano which are both close enough for a day trip during your stay broncos known for its bright colored houses fishing and lace while morocco is more widely known for its gloss so take a look and see if you fancy a bit of italian island hopping. gliding

along the canal drownding towards the venetian lagoon within minutes the scenery changes entirely. is home to over thirty small islands most of them uninhabited. after half an hour we reach no famous for its brightly colored fisherman's houses. local sebastiano they don't see advises us to come in early to avoid the tourists. he's the operator of a travel portal and he tells us why the houses here came to be painted in such high popping shades. were that it does if you would on all you need tell me this in the houses are so colorful because the fishermen used to be out at sea for long periods of video and this way they could see their homes from

a far. it made them less homesick. these days the brightly painted houses are such a big heart of image that owners must get permission to change their color another eye catching sight is the leaning bell tower i put on which has a tilt of about one point eight metres. but the ground is very swampy and the church tower was simply poorly planned by the architect on the bridge at the through on it. today we're quite proud of it because it's become a landmark no one can imagine corrado without the towers. or without its hand tatted like. these types of floral patterns and textured embroidery are typical of burano lice which enjoys a long tradition here today just a few women still practice this craft like this lace maker in

a specialty shop but hand ted lace has its price. like this table cloth which took twenty lace makers two years to make. this claw is approximately five point two metres yet it's comprised of individual parts which have been put together when you folks ask how much it costs we say as much as a ferrari. and this wedding veil is priceless it was once made for the italian royal family. these days just a few of the island's two thousand five hundred residents live from fishing they sell their catch in venice and numerous restaurants their menus feature a wide variety of fresh fish and seafood. so what's the locals favorite fish dish. the locals love marinated sardines in the morning with

a glass of wine that's typical. of many. after lunch we set off for the neighboring island of mano a twenty minute both ride away morano is world famous for its class. in the fourteenth century the island's glassblowers already had a reputation as being the best of their kind. royals were among their customers. today morano is still home to glass blowers who are masters of their trade it takes years of experience to know how to use pieces of glass together so they won't crack and to create certain colors. well miles to be able to it's no secret that marano glass is known for its many

colors to start off the glass is almost black very dark but we have a lot of experience and can change the colors during the process to make them lighter and more transparent and to decide which color suit which object will. serve a certain role. whether it's an elaborate chandelier for thousands of euros or a more affordable figurine most visitors take home a souvenir made from glass. actually we've got some friends are getting married this year with maybe a wooden gift for them so you all repair viewings. we bought two pieces of glass large pieces of glass that they'll ship to us next month yes we're very excited. but few tourists ever spend the nights on brando or morano. with its breathtaking scenery venice is just too close and too tempting.

when. you can find all episodes of our island series on our website d.w. dot com slash lifestyle that's also where you can take part in this week's competition we'd like to know what luxury items you would take with you if you were stranded on a desert island just upload a picture of yourself and your companion on our website and you'll be entered into the prize draw for an exclusive if you're a max wrist watch so good luck you can also find plenty more your max online on our facebook and instagram pages at data via your max that's all from us for today so see you again tomorrow. next time on your own max. with beer bottles beer painting was invented by the french artist duo in march being empty bottles into paint and print portraits with them preferably ones from the world of care products they present their art at

social events where audience participation is called for your painting next time on your.

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