Michael Palin undertakes an epic journey of 23,000 miles, traveling from the North to the South Pole across 17 countries with a minimum of air travel, all on a tight deadline.
The peaks and the valleys. Find the essential episodes — and the ones to skip.
Despite being unable to reach Antarctica via the Agulhas, all is not lost for Palin. A travel adventure company is able to take Palin to the South Pole from their base in Chile. This means Palin must abandon the 30 degrees east meridian.
Palin begins at the North Pole, flying there on a small aeroplane fitted with skis. From there, he heads to Greenland, then the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, where the towns of Ny Alesund and Longyearbyen are located. He travels from Norway to Finland, meeting locals along the way.
Palin meets up with a Vladimir Lenin impersonator, witnesses a Russian Orthodox baptism ceremony, visits the cemetery where the likes of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky are buried, visits the town of Chernobyl, Ukraine, and then travels to Kiev and Odessa.
Arriving in Wadi Halfa, Sudan, Palin boards a train bound for Khartoum, the capital. There he receives some bad news: he will be unable to journey further south into Sudan due to the ongoing conflict in the southern region of the nation. Seeking an alternative, he finds Eritreans willing to drive him to the border with Ethiopia.
Each point is an episode, plotted in order. Colored bands mark season boundaries. Look for the rise, the plateau, or the decline.
High votes + high rating = beloved classic. High votes + low rating = notorious stinker. Low votes + high rating = hidden gem.
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