''Michael Palin's New Europe'' is a

travel documentary A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or tourist attractions without recommending particular package deals or tour operators. A travelogue film is an early type of travel ...

presented by

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

and first aired in the UK on the BBC on 16 September 2007 and in the US on the Travel Channel on 28 January 2008. Palin visits 20 countries in Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

– the programme was filmed in the wake of the

2004 enlargement of the European Union The largest expansion of the European Union (EU), in terms of territory, number of states, and population took place on 1 May 2004. The simultaneous accessions concerned the following countries (sometimes referred to as the "A10" countries): ...

(and shortly before the 2007 enlargement), which included many of the countries visited by Palin and significantly reshaped east–west relations on the continent. The filming was done in 2006 and early 2007 using HD (high definition) equipment.Press release
/ref> The result was made into seven one-hour programmes for

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

and simulcast on

BBC HD BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...

. A book, '' New Europe'', was also written describing the trip, and illustrated with photographs by

Basil Pao Basil Pao Ho-Yun (鲍皓昕) is a Hong Kong-based photographer. He has been the stills photographer on the BBC filming teams that made Michael Palin's television travel programmes. Early career Pao was born in Hong Kong, but started his career a ...

Episodes

The series consists of seven one-hour episodes:

References

External links