Multiple dates

Series 2, Episode 3 Great Continental Railway Journeys. The rail journey traverses northern Germany with sightseeing stops in the reconstructed city of Dresden, Leipzig, defined by its musical heritage, the historic charms of Braunschweig, to modern Kiel, known as the gateway to the Baltic Sea, before reaching cosmopolitan Hamburg which boasts a world famous miniature railway.

Multiple dates

Series 1, Episode 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys. The romance of travelling across Europe by rail which includes an overnight sleeper train is an inviting prospect and this 11-day Great Continental Rail Journey offers this and much more as you enjoy the jewels of Austria and Hungary's cities, rivers and scenery.

Multiple dates

Series 5, Episode 4 Great Continental Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo travels across Europe to explore the Italian Riviera and the Austrian Alps. The train is a wonderful way to explore the Italian coastline south of Genoa and visit the pretty Cinque Terre. In contrast you then travel through Italy towards the Alps to encounter contrasting scenery before making your way back into Switzerland.

Multiple dates

Series 5, Episode 6 Great Continental Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo explores Holland in this episode, a compact country that allows you to stay in one city, Utrecht, and use it as a base from which to conduct sightseeing tours around Utrecht itself as well as visits to Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Delft , using a rail pass that allows unlimited travel.

Multiple dates

Series 5, Episode 5, Great Continental Rail Journeys. In this episode Michael Portillo explores northern Europe and the Baltic coast region. This 9-day tour allows plenty of time to explore some important northern European cities that would not ordinarily feature highly as tourist destinations, but Riga in Lativia, Tartu and Tallin in Estonia and Helsinki and Tampere in Finland have lots to offer the holiday rail traveller.

Multiple dates

Famous symbologist Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks, is back on cinema screens in Inferno – the third novel in Dan Brown’s trilogy. The plot follows a trail of clues tied to the great medieval poet Dante and sees Langdon team up with Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), a doctor, in a race across Europe and against the clock to foil a deadly global plot. You too can follow their journey as they visit many famous landmarks in Florence and Venice and travel by train through Italy. Your trip will be less dramatic, but at a pace that allows you to soak up the beauty and history of Florence and Venice.

Multiple dates

Series 5, Episode 2, Great Continental Rail Journeys. Switzerland is an inevitable destination for a European rail journey as Bradshaw discovered and documented in his 1913 Continental Railway Guide. Now we see a modern version of this rail route as Michael Portillo travels to Switzerland, visiting Geneva, Bern and the Swiss Alps resort of Zermatt. This tour mirrors this journey but with the added flexibility of a Swiss Travel Pass allowing you to explore using trains, lake steamers, city buses and trams.

Multiple dates

Series 5, Episode 1, Great Continental Rail Journeys. With Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide in hand, Michael Portillo ventures east through Romania. He encounters a bloodsucking vampire in Transylvania and brown bears in the Carpathian forest before visiting a fairy tale castle with modern conveniences in Sinaia, striking oil in Ploeşti, tapping into the nation's musical soul in Bucharest and loading cargo from a 100-foot crane in Constanta.

Multiple dates

Series 2, Episode 6 Great Continental Railway Journeys. In the final episode of BBC2's GCRJs Series 2 we follow Portillo's route to experience four very cultural and cosmopolitan cities in France and Northern Spain. A 9-day rail journey that allows plenty of time to sample the elegant and artistic atmosphere of Bordeaux, Biarritz, San Sebastián and Bilbao.

Multiple dates

Series 4, Episode 6, Great Continental Rail Journeys. In this final episode in this series Michael Portillo continues to be steered by his 1913 Bradshaw's Guide and returns to Spain to trace the early 20th Century roots of the Spanish Civil War, which divided his own Spanish family and sent his father into exile. A special dispensation to fly to the Balearic island of Mallorca allows Michael to experience spectacular scenic rides aboard a sublime 1912 vintage railway and a 1913 tram.