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The area around "Jingu", the Grand Shrine of Ise was lively even during the Edo period, bustling with activity and entertainment while the shrine itself served as a sacred place for worshippers. This created a distinct culture. The complex terrain led to unique customs which are still cherished today. A traditional shellfish female diver "Ama" who enters the water without any breathing gear is born from necessity. Discover the local culture and other traditions on our 300km journey.

Garden Guru Trevor Cochrane takes us along the wildflower highway showing off a spectacular colour display unlike any other on the planet..

In 2018, Japan celebrated the 50th anniversary of the return of the Ogasawara Islands. This World Natural Heritage Site, 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, is home to a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community that has flourished since the 19th century. The islanders' dedication to one another allowed them to endure the Pacific War and subsequent US military occupation. Nowadays, they enjoy life amid the flora and fauna that make their piece of the world unique.

New Zealand transports you to an exotic, magnificent and isolated island chain where the mysterious and unexpected story of its true nature is revealed. Narrated by Sam Neill.

Join Chef Marcus Samuelsson on an inspiring journey across the U.S. to explore and celebrate the wide-ranging diversity of immigrant traditions and cuisine woven into American food and culture.

The film industry employs more than a quarter of a million people in India and Anita Rani begins her journey in Mumbai – the home of Bollywood – where the stars tower over the city on enormous murals. Anita discovers just how important the movies are to everyday people at one of the oldest cinemas in Mumbai, where she quickly finds herself in the middle of a screaming mob as the stars of that night’s film make a surprise appearance. Anita is invited onto the set of a film shooting in downtown Mumbai, where she meets one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Anil Kapoor, who explains the enduring appeal of these films and gives her a rare glimpse into how the famous dance numbers are shot with almost no rehearsals in advance. Inspired to give it a go herself, Anita joins a leading choreographer who explains the ancient traditions at the heart of modern Bollywood dance numbers before they all head to the roof of a high-rise so Anita can star in a Bollywood ‘Item Number’ herself.

'To send a spacecraft there is a little bit insane,' says Scott Bolton when talking about Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. But that is exactly what he has done, because Scott is head of Juno, the Nasa mission designed to peer through Jupiter's swirling clouds and reveal the wonders within. But this is no ordinary world. This documentary, narrated by Toby Jones, journeys with the scientists into the heart of a giant.

Professor Kaitlin Kratter shows us how extreme Jupiter is. She has come to a quarry to measure out each planet's mass with rocks, starting with the smallest. Mercury is a single kilogram, and the Earth is 17. But Jupiter is on another scale entirely. It is seven tonnes - that is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets combined. On Kaitlin's scale it is not a pile of rocks, it is the truck delivering them. With extreme size comes extreme radiation. Juno is in the most extreme environment Nasa has visited. By projecting a 70-foot-wide, life-size Juno on a Houston rooftop, Scott shows us how its fragile electronics are encased in 200kg of titanium. As Scott puts it, 'we had to build an armoured tank to go there.'

Paul Rose presents a documentary series about the Pennine Way, Britain's first national trail first opened in 1965. At 268 miles long, the Pennine Way stretches from the Peak District in Derbyshire to the Scottish Borders.

Midge Ure and Kim Appleby explore the distinct sounds that came out of different parts of Britain and Ireland in one of pop's golden decades.
Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox and one of the men behind Band Aid, and Kim Appleby, who had a string of hits with her sister Mel in the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced band Mel and Kim, go on a journey back in time to the 80s to figure out why certain cities produced their own diverse tunes.

In this entertaining series, Ed Balls travels to America’s Deep South, to immerse himself in the lives of those who put Trump in power and learn how this reality TV businessman won them over. Trump promised to make Americans proud again, so Ed joins the 15,000 working-class Americans heading to Saint-Jo, Texas, with their monster trucks and Confederate flags for the wild Rednecks with Paychecks festival – the ultimate celebration of Southern Pride.

Against the backdrop of President Trump's much-trumpeted wall, Reginald D Hunter takes a 2,000-mile road trip along the US-Mexico border to explore how romance and reality play out musically where third-world Mexico meets first-world USA on this broken road to the American dream.
Classic American pop and country portray Mexico as a land of escape and romance, but also of danger - think of Marty Robbins's El Paso, The Drifters' Mexican Divorce or Ry Cooder's Across the Borderline. Against this evocative western soundtrack, Hunter explores the border music as it is today, much of it created by musicians drawn from the 36 million Mexican-Americans who are US citizens.

Josh Gates explores legendary places connected to the spiritual realm, from a Japanese ice cave guarded by a dragon’s spirit to the Transylvania home of a Romanian folk hero who inspired an iconic literary character.

David Baddiel sets off on a 4,000 mile journey to explore the most famous trade route in history – the Silk Road. He travels from Xi’an, China to Istanbul, Turkey to uncover a series of remarkable locations, mysteries and hidden gems, many unknown to the western world.
The 2,000 year old ancient highway changed the world, carrying not just trade but knowledge, religion, disease and dissent between the Far East and Europe. With exclusive access to research and investigations, using cutting edge technology, David retraces the steps of merchants, warriors and pilgrims along the largest trade route the world has ever known.

Astronaut Mike Massimino explores the universe’s strangest alien galaxies, strange places that could be home to extraterrestrial life and deadly supermassive black holes.

Piers Taylor and Caroline Quentin head to Israel, where they discover four extraordinary homes, designed to combat the heat and inspired by rich cultural and historical traditions. Among the properties are Barud House in Jerusalem, made from 50,000 white stone tiles, arranged into a symmetrical pattern that casts shadows across the house all day. The final stop is the village of Musmus and the House of Three Gardens, where Tel Aviv architect Ron Fleisher has designed a house that combines traditional Islamic architecture with modernism. Last in the series.

Director Chris Marker begins by recounting his childhood dream of visiting the city of Peking, a city he was once only able to admire in books.
The viewer is taken on a journey through this city, as if experiencing it from the mind and through the eyes of Marker.
His thoughts and observations about the traditions, history, and banalities of everyday life in Peking are woven together in elegant fashion.

You will see some of the most well known Peruvian sites as you have never seen them. Who built them, and why? Experience a fascinating journey between myth and truth, in a land where traces of very ancient civilizations still survive.

Springwatch from the National Trust's Sherborne Park Estate in Gloucestershire.

Thailand is a place of a thousand landscapes, dominated by lush forests, rolling hills and extensive rivers systems that feed into the mighty Mekong. Here the Mekong River continues it’s journey down the Eastern border, winding it’s way through biological and geological crossroads, sculpting the landscape and the lives of the creatures that live there.

Henry Ford’s Fordlandia Rubber Town has been left to rot in the Amazon Rainforest, but it was once a symbol of the American dream.