Joanna Lumley's Danube

ITV News

13-05-2025

Press Pack
Strictly embargoed until 00.01am Tuesday 13 May 2025
TX Friday 23 May 2025 at 9pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV & STV Player
'This amazing journey took me along Europe's longest and most important river which flows through 10 different countries and for centuries, for millenia, has formed boundaries, been a waterway edged to different countries, and was so central to all of our history, going right back to the Roman days. It was a thrill.'
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley returns to ITV, this time embarking on a rip-roaring adventure across the heart of Europe following the most international river in the world, the Danube. From source to sea, Joanna will be tracking the river from its origins beneath the pines of Germany's Black Forest all the way to the Black Sea.
On the way she'll encounter Bavaria's beer-brewing nuns, Slovakia's stunning snow-capped peaks, Hungary's Great Plain and its distinctive cowboys, the majesty of Vienna and Budapest, the raw beauty of Transylvania and unique wilderness that is the Danube Delta.
Episode One - Germany and Austria
In the first episode, Joanna starts her adventure in Germany's Black Forest where the mighty Danube is just a trickle. At the source of the river, Joanna admires the statue of Danuvius, an ancient Roman river god, who is keeping guard.
Joanna says: ' This is the river that has carried goods and people up and down it. It's had wars fought over it. It's created boundaries. And to be here, at the beginning of its journey, it's just completely dazzling.'
Next Joanna visits the birthplace of the cuckoo clock before travelling through some of the country's most beautiful scenery including the stunning Danube Gorge in Bavaria.
Along the way, Joanna meets many memorable characters including a beer-brewing nun and the first ever group of gay lederhosen-clad folk dancers.
As she arrives in Austria, Joanna discovers the beauty and tastes of the Wachau wine valley and, in Vienna, fulfils a lifelong dream to visit the Vienna Boys Choir.
Looking out over the city of Vienna, Joanna says: ' It's so civilised, it's so gorgeous. You just say a name and somebody came and worked in Vienna, lived in Vienna, was Viennese, names like Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert, names like Mahler and Klimt, it just goes on and on, anybody who's anybody came and worked and lived or visited Vienna. Giants.'
She then meets up with Austria's biggest celebrity, Tom Neuwirth, also known as Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst, who shows her more of the city's history.
Finally, before she leaves Austria, Joanna visits a special cafe which was set up to encourage older people and grannies to combat loneliness and bond over cake.
As Joanna chats to Marianne, who runs the cafe, she says: ' It touches my heart this, I love it. Because I'm an Oma, a granny, and it makes sense. We are the same age, we are old but we are not finished, we've got much to do, we've got love to give, skills.
'This is one of the loveliest places I've ever visited, because it's people being looked after by grannies…I think we should have more of these around the world.'
Episode Two - Slovakia and Hungary
Joanna's incredible adventure along Europe's mightiest river continues as, in the second episode, she travels into Eastern Europe and the landlocked countries of Slovakia and Hungary.
In Slovakia, Joanna traces Danube tributaries up to the top of some of Europe's most dramatic mountains, the snow-capped Tatras. In Budapest she explores the river by boat and rides a unique children's railway, as well as discovering the city's Jewish heritage.
Out on the Great Hungarian Plain, Joanna investigates work that's been done to clean up plastic river pollution and she meets the last Ciskós, Hungary's unforgettable cowboys who demonstrate their incredible horsemanship.
Episode Three
Joanna's epic adventure along the mighty river Danube comes to an end in beautiful Romania. Starting at the vast Iron Gates gorge, Joanna travels up into wild Transylvania where she follows the trails of brown bears in the forest and discovers the secret history of Dracula's castle.
After a night in a charming guest house owned by King Charles and an unforgettable encounter with Europe's most powerful witches, Joanna heads towards the Danube Delta, one of the last great wilderness areas remaining in Europe, full of birdlife including the majestic Pelican. At the mouth of the river, on Romania's Black Sea coast, Joanna bids farewell to the Danube and reflects on her amazing journey.
Press Pack Interview:
Joanna Lumley
Strictly embargoed until 00.01am Tuesday 13 May 2025
TX Friday 23 May 2025 at 9pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV & STV Player
Where do you visit in the latest series and what can viewers expect to see?
I couldn't be more interested and in love with geography, and the world as a whole, but I was pretty thick about the Danube. I didn't realise that it is Europe's longest and most important river and that it went through 10 different countries and that, for centuries, for millenia, it's formed boundaries, been a waterway edged to different countries and is central to all of our history, going right back to the Roman days. So that was a thrill.
It was wonderful to use the river as a guideline. We go to Germany, where she rises, and then Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Then up to the Ukraine border to meet refugees and then onto the great river again as she slips out into the Black Sea. It was a delight to see this magnificent river literally coming out of the ground at the source, a tiny little trickle, and then travelling her length and seeing the huge great estuaries emptying themselves into the Black Sea, all those miles and miles and miles later. It was awesome.
Everything about this particular trip was eye-opening. It was terribly touching, very funny and very extreme. You could think, 'Oh it's just Europe,' but it was extraordinary. Sometimes it's easy to think you know Europe, because it is near, but we might know, say, The Tower of Pisa, The Eiffel Tower, Berlin, Spain, but we don't really, really know everywhere: and as for Eastern Europe, it was thrilling. I thought every part of it was just magic. So I was on tenterhooks from the very start and the series really shows a cross-section of incredible things.
Please can you tell us about some of the people you met?
Honestly, where do I start? The Ledenhosen dancers were so unbelievably touching. We all know about the lovely leather shorts that the Austrians wear and the clapping and slapping, but this was a group made completely of middle-aged gay men and it was quite out of this world. The dancing was heroic but what was really touching was that they had come from across the world, and it really is a skill, very very fiddly, but also they make all their own costumes and beautiful hats. They were amazing. Their kindness and inclusivity touched me very much. A group of people, who for so long have been outlawed and during the last horrible history of Austria were sent to extermination camps for being gay, suddenly here they are, bang in the heart of Austria doing this fabulous dancing. So that was very touching.
The other thing I adored was in Romania where I met a coven of witches who were also Romani travellers. That was extraordinary. They are phenomenal women and I was involved in a ceremony on the Danube, it was rather like a Druid ceremony, where they look to north, south, east and west, earth, air, light, water, all these different qualities they summon up and make peace with and banish bad things, put light into the shadows to make the world a better place. They are white witches, they're good witches. And they are so glamorous and so fantastic. They did this great ceremony with masses of candles, the camera boys nearly died from the heat. Then they gave me a beautiful amulet to wear to take me safely on the rest of my journey.
And I can't forget the brewing nuns, making beer which they sold and had a very flourishing industry from it. When I asked the sister if she thought God would approve of alcohol she said, 'I think that God wants us to be happy and alcohol makes us happy'. I thought that was the sweetest answer I have ever heard.
Please can you tell us about the 'granny' cafe?
This is the best idea in the world. Everyone knows that granny's cakes are best so these grannies decided to bring in all their old lovely, homely china and hand-knitted cushions and make the little cafe welcoming and serve the most delicious cakes and be the waitresses. It was very touching. The people working there were so happy to be out in society again and so happy to be needed. I thought it was a wonderful idea to enable lonely, older people and show how good they are at cooking and taking care of people, bustling about and being grannies.
What surprised you the most about the Danube River on this trip?
The actual river astonished me because it went from being completely placid and going along as quiet as a little mill pool to enormous torrents. The Iron Gates, when you come into Romania, are huge steep-sided rocks and gorges and great whirlpools and crashing water, hydro-electric dams - and the power of that water coming streaming down from the mountains. We went up The Tatra Mountains but it was so cold we didn't know if we'd be able to get up there because the winds were so high and the snow storms were so great. Then when we got there, the weather man who I was talking to, as I stood talking to him, his moustache and eyelashes were covered in ice. It was phenomenally cold.
So we went from boiling heat, right on the edge of the Black Sea, to these huge high mountains and dashing, crashing waters, to very peaceful canals and lagoons and side rivers. Everything about it was amazing. And the Romans used to have spa baths there and there's one which is ruined, but they're hoping to bring it back. A very marvellous young architect is planning to bring it back and she's trying very hard to find the money. It was beyond beautiful. Things that are decaying and falling apart have an added beauty to them and that was very, very special.
What was your favourite part of the Danube River as I believe it travels through/ borders 10 countries?
One of the bits I loved was sleeping on the boat at the end because that gave us a chance to be on the river itself. So much of the time we had to be on trains or roads or planes, doing other things around the water, but to then be on it, going right down towards the end in Romania, where it's one of the biggest wetlands in the world, with more birds than you could ever dream of, it was like wandering into paradise, huge open lagoons and lakes with every kind of bird from vast eagles and storks and cranes to tiny finches and ducks and coots and swans, it was like a picture of paradise. Beautiful beyond words. And so silent. Just hearing birdsong around.
You go along at your own sweet speed and your mind unravels a bit. I did so much thinking and reflecting on how we neglect geography at our peril. Mountains and lakes and rivers like this have defined our history and which country we belong to and where the borders end. The Danube goes right across Europe, flowing west to east: and it was the northern limit of the Roman Empire right back in those days. Beyond that it was called the wilderness, beyond the woods, trans-sylvania - they thought that the north was chaos.
You've done so much travelling now over the years - where is your favourite place in the world and why?
I feel like rather an unfaithful flirt because every time I've gone somewhere I think, 'Oh that was extraordinary,' and then you go somewhere else and think that's the best. But to be looking up at the dawn rising on the Great Wall of China, on the wild bit of the wall where nobody goes, and seeing the sun and this great broken wall stretching away as far as the eye can see, will stay with me forever.
And the Banda Islands, so far away on the map it takes 11 hours by ferry to get there and they're just dots and you can hardly see them, and that's where the whole story of New York began with the Dutch. We gave them an island there in the Banda Islands in Indonesia and they gave us New York. The world is just crammed with things that make you say, 'Oh my God!' It's so full of marvels. That's why I'd love people to realise the world is marvellous. You've only got one life, you must live it to the full. Get up before dawn and go somewhere odd. Go on a local bus, don't just lie by the pool.
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