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00:00A few hundred years ago, there was the grand tour of Europe.
00:08Young aristocratic lords and ladies set off across the continent on a cultural rite of passage.
00:15They departed as callow youths, with the aim of returning to Britain refined, stylish, and schooled in the birds and the bees.
00:25I'm Tom Reed Wilson, and at the grand age of almost 40, I'm in need of a transformation.
00:36Oh girl, if you die, you die.
00:39I'm on the brink of being terribly grown up, so before that happens, I want to flood my senses with adventures of a bygone time.
00:46Who needs yoga when you've got etiquette?
00:49So, with a heart full of wanderlust, an old guidebook,
00:52My trusty Vedica.
00:53And a suitably vintage lens.
00:55It's the way Catherine Hepburn did it.
00:57I'm following in the posh footsteps of yesteryear.
01:00By horse power.
01:01Man power.
01:04Fire power.
01:05Up in a balloon, boys.
01:09And the occasional modern convenience.
01:11There's Florence!
01:12From gay Paris to Rome, the eternal city.
01:18Will the magic of the grand tour work on me, as it did on the powdered and privileged youth of the past?
01:24My time traveller!
01:25Gosh, yes I am!
01:27So get ready to twirl through the continent.
01:30This is getting rather naughty.
01:32This is my grand tour.
01:35The grand tour of Europe flung the young nobility of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, such as Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and John Ruskin, into a cornucopia of art, literature, and culture.
01:56Like me, they were young, single, and eager for adventure.
02:01And as I'm soon to turn 40, I'm making the most of a grand tour of my own.
02:06I began in Paris.
02:08Gosh.
02:09It is dazzlingly beautiful.
02:13I was hoisted over the Alps.
02:15Don't be heroes.
02:16Ooh.
02:17Recuperated in Lake Como.
02:20I think even I can't take a bad photograph here.
02:23And twirled at the carnival in Venice.
02:26Broken a slightly baroque sweat doing that.
02:32Now I'm on the final leg of my grand tour, motoring across Italy, through the glorious vineyards and olive groves of Tuscany, to the stunning ancient city of Florence.
02:45This is my virgin visit to Florence.
02:48It's going to be, I hope, a sublime baptism.
02:52And what better way to arrive than in lovely Lorenzo's vintage Lancia.
03:01And you might be thinking, this particular mode of transportation is a bit more Roger Moore than Lord Byron.
03:09But I do have a very good excuse.
03:11I've been told this is the best way to take in the very first view of the city.
03:20Florence, the jewel of Tuscany, the birthplace of the Renaissance, a city where 600 years ago, art, science and philosophy blossomed and changed the world forever.
03:41For those intrepid grand tourists of yesteryear, visiting Florence was an absolute must.
03:50It must have been like a huge prize for the grand tourist after so much travel to have oodles of the jewels of Renaissance art in one little clump.
04:03I'm taking lodgings at the Hermitage Hotel in the heart of Florence, right next to the iconic Ponte Vecchio, a bridge full of jewelers and luxury shops that bestrides the Arno River.
04:28This is perilous for me, I'm a mad guy.
04:35The grand tourists may have been drawn here for the art and jewels, but I've always dreamt of coming to Florence for cinematic reasons.
04:43My favourite film set in Florence is A Room with a View with Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter and Judi Dench.
04:55When Lucy, sublimely played by a very young Helena Bonham Carter, opens the window of her hotel, she is enraptured by her view of the Arno and beyond.
05:06This is what they can see the Ponte Vecchio.
05:11But the characters who are on their own grand tour disagree on how best to explore Florence, specifically whether or not to use the Baedeker guidebook.
05:21Judy Dench hates them.
05:27No, Miss Bartlett, you will not look into your Baedeker.
05:31I'm sorry, Judy, but I feel like Maggie does. I'm rather fond of mine.
05:37Florence, Florence, Florence.
05:39The modern Italian language and literature have emanated chiefly from Florence.
05:46And the fine arts also attain the zenith of their glory here, an amazing profusion of treasures of art such as no other locality possesses.
05:55Well, if that's the case, then I need to leave the confines of my lodgings immediately and create some memories in this majestic city.
06:11You know, the grand tourists often came armed with a sketchbook.
06:15And I've got this, so I can capture the real McCoy. In fact, no McCoy could be realer.
06:20Captured on my Super 8 camera, there's no doubt this city is a cinematic delight, adored by artists and architects alike.
06:30And in the center of it all is something very special indeed.
06:37This has slightly knotted my viscera. This is my first sight of the Duomo.
06:44And it's absolutely walloped me like a cudgel.
06:48The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore took 140 years to complete, crowned in 1436 by the largest masonry dome on earth.
07:01Devised by the architectural genius, Filippo Brunelleschi, using techniques that inspired Sir Christopher Wren nearly 300 years later for the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
07:14That dome that was like the fuse that lit the dynamite of Renaissance architecture, it takes my breath away.
07:25It is quite simply one of the most beautiful buildings ever created. And the grand tourists agreed.
07:35You know, ever since I was very small, intense beauty just makes me weep.
07:54I'm so sorry. In disarray.
08:03I really am knocked for six. I need to lie down back at my lodgings. I must rest ahead of a very big day.
08:11Because tomorrow, I climb up the hallowed stairs of the Duomo at dawn.
08:22Oh, that puts coal in my firebox. Vino goes down the hatch.
08:28Chianticlassico. And the ruins of ancient Rome are at my fingertips.
08:33Oh, gosh, the mark of the wheel.
08:48I'm in Florence. And like the grand tourists before me, I've managed to pull some strings to get a private view of the city's Duomo in all its glory.
08:58The downside? It's a hideously early start.
09:05I'm here at the doors of the Duomo, staggeringly early in the morning. I mean, sparrows fart before the lights even up.
09:14The dome's architect, Brunelleschi, hid steps inside it for his workers to use.
09:31Only 458 to go.
09:35But now, they are a true stairway to heaven.
09:39Gosh.
09:41The dome that created the domino effect of Renaissance domes.
09:47Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael all climbed these steps to admire Brunelleschi's masterpiece.
09:55Oh, gosh. That's the interior.
10:03Oh, look at that.
10:09These frescoes were added over 100 years after Brunelleschi died, mostly painted by the Florentine artist Giorgio Vasari, the man who coined the term Renaissance.
10:23Renaissance. The artwork spans over 3600 square meters and depicts the triumphant return of Christ at the end of the world.
10:33It is one of the largest painted frescoes ever made.
10:36I think the Grand Tourist must have been in awe.
10:43And it's as crisp and immaculate as ever it was.
10:49Believe it or not, the best views are apparently still to come.
10:53Boy, boy, boy.
10:56And I see light.
10:57Oh, that puts coal in my firebox.
11:07What a payoff this vista was for the Grand Tourists.
11:12All these grey streaks and dappled sky giving it such strength and texture.
11:17I'm sort of glad that we didn't see this on a picture postcard day.
11:24It's very dramatic.
11:25Back on earth and just round the corner, I stumble across the glorious Piazza della Signoria, where Lucy, played by Helena Bonham Carter in a room with a view, faints into the arms of the dashing Julian Sands.
11:53To avoid a similar incident as I giddily navigate this gorgeous array of sculptures, I need some guidance.
12:07So like those Grand Tourists before me, I found myself a tutor or bear leader.
12:15Laura.
12:17Nice to meet you.
12:18Ciao.
12:19How are you?
12:20Oh, my bear leader today.
12:22Art expert Laura Amerighi is the modern equivalent of a Grand Tour chaperone.
12:29You see the beautiful statues everywhere you look.
12:33Yeah.
12:35Symbols of the power of the Medici.
12:37The Medici were a family of bankers who ruled Florence for nearly 300 years.
12:42They spent lavishly on art and architecture, including works by Da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, who created one of the most famous statues in the world.
12:55The most important one, that is David.
12:58David was originally intended to be stood on the Duomo roof, but he was deemed too beautiful and important, so was placed here in the center of the city.
13:10The original was moved to a museum for preservation in 1873. This is an exquisitely rendered replica.
13:17He is magnificent. He's so much more substantial than I thought he was going to be. I mean, he's whopping.
13:24Michelangelo, he knew anatomy very well. So therefore, he was able to transfer the perfection of the anatomy in such a big size.
13:37It is extraordinary, isn't it? It's so detailed. I mean, around the clavicle and even those mastoids.
13:43And the juggler as well. Yes, yes.
13:47But for the grand tourists with their stiff British upbringings, these naked statues were quite a shock.
13:54Queen Victoria was particularly scandalized, you know, when she saw David's bits and bobs.
14:01So the authorities took action to spare the queens and the grand tourist blushes.
14:06You know, that in the 19th century, there was a fig leaf covering his naked body.
14:14Oh, what a pity.
14:16The young travelers weren't just looking, they were learning.
14:20Grand tourist Anne Seymour Demer became one of Britain's most celebrated 18th century sculptors,
14:27thanks in part to her many trips to Florence, studying statues like David and learning from master craftsmen.
14:33Raffaello.
14:35Hello, Tom.
14:37Oh, what an honor to meet you.
14:40Nice to meet you too.
14:42World renowned sculptor Raffaello Romanelli and his family have been creating masterpieces here for over 200 years.
14:50Six generations of sculptors in one family takes me so close to the grand tourists.
14:56Oh, it makes me completely gooey.
14:58Grand tourist and sculptor Anne Demer was particularly keen on crafting portraits of her actor friends, which gives me an idea.
15:09I won't be good, but I'd very much like to have a go.
15:14Come with me.
15:15Raffaello has recently been commissioned to make this bust of English actor Eddie Redmayne and he's going to allow me to, well, copy it.
15:23Look, even that little cows lick.
15:26It's exactly him.
15:28It took Raffaello two weeks to sculpt his.
15:31I've got about half an hour.
15:33Oh, that's very quick.
15:35Really?
15:36Oh God, are you ready there?
15:38Oh.
15:39That's very quick.
15:43Gosh, Eddie, I'm studying you in a whole new way.
15:47It's almost like pillow talk.
15:52Oh no, something's fallen off.
15:54You're very good at lips, I can say.
15:56Do you think so?
15:57Yeah.
15:58Just to do a pair of lips normally takes three hours.
16:01I'm really realising the patience required.
16:05It's really hard.
16:07Every time you think you've made headway, you step back and you think, oh no, it's worse.
16:15Well, your face, you're not Eddie Redmayne's face.
16:21Well, I'll tell you, there's not very many people can do a face like that in a very short time.
16:24Welcome to the sculptor world.
16:27I don't think my effort will end up in a gallery any time soon.
16:30Unlike my grand tourist predecessor, English sculptor Ann Dehmer,
16:35who gave her marble self-portrait to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence,
16:39where it can still be seen today.
16:41Thank you, grazie mille.
16:43Di niente, grazie a te. Ciao.
16:45Completed in 1580, the Uffizi was the building from which the Medici family ran Florence,
17:00with the top floor set aside for their private art collection.
17:04This is it.
17:05Yeah, we entered.
17:06Oh, Laura.
17:08Today it's one of the most visited art galleries in Italy,
17:12with pieces by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and many more.
17:18To beat the crowds, my bear leader Laura has wangled me a private view.
17:22And now I take you to the place that was visited by the grand tourists, the important ones.
17:31In the early days of the grand tour, the Uffizi was invitation only.
17:36At its heart, the tribunal room was a favourite meeting place for well-connected grand tourists
17:42and for Grand Duke Francesco de' Medici to show off.
17:45And this was the place where he liked to collect all his most precious objects.
17:54What a remarkable room.
17:56Grand tourist Thomas Beckford wrote that he fell into a delightful delirium,
18:02flew madly from bust to bust like a butterfly bewildered in a universe of flowers.
18:08But further down the corridor, there is a painting prized above all others.
18:17Oh, she doesn't disappoint, does she?
18:20No.
18:21Wow.
18:27The birth of Venus, the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty,
18:32was painted in the 15th century by Florentine Sandro Botticelli.
18:39Exquisitely beautiful.
18:41Yeah.
18:42Those eyes are extraordinary.
18:44They look right at you and through you almost.
18:47Yeah.
18:49It's the use of gold that Botticelli uses also, you see, the wings and the hair to give light.
18:55But look at the gesture because there is also a Christian interpretation.
18:59Yes, absolutely.
19:00And John's baptizing Jesus.
19:01Yes, absolutely.
19:02You see that the gesture is the same because they were trying to put together mythology with Christianity.
19:12So the sense of beauty, beauty is truth.
19:16Yes, yes.
19:18Shockingly, this was also the first secular painting to include nudity,
19:23with golden hair draped over her body for modesty.
19:26You see the blonde hair because it was the fashion of the time.
19:31And rich ladies used to bleach the hair by using urine.
19:36But the urine of the babies, that was better.
19:39Urine.
19:41I didn't know it had properties to bleach one's hair.
19:44It's a natural harmoniac.
19:45So all frantically dunking their heads in.
19:50Yeah.
19:51That's a baby's wee.
19:52Yeah.
19:53To try and always unlock their inner Venus.
19:55Incredible things to look beautiful.
19:58I think I'll leave my own curls so natural.
20:02This is the only painting on canvas that we have.
20:07One of the most ancient, because normally they were painting on wood.
20:11This is much more soft.
20:13It's really incredible how different this is in the flesh.
20:18It's like seeing it through a kind of magical fog,
20:21which makes it sort of fantastical and wondrous.
20:25Countless people have stood here and basked in the glory of Venus.
20:29Not least Queen Victoria, who visited the Uffizi in 1893
20:33and was so inspired by the art she even dabbled herself.
20:37But unlike David, her models kept their clothes on.
20:41She loved to draw, so she felt that she was much more free,
20:47you know, to stay here without having all the obligations.
20:51The little time off being a queen, just being an artist.
20:54And she also liked to drink a little bit after dinner.
20:59Well, who could blame her?
21:03And the queen would never have been too far from a nice glass of wine in this city.
21:09Just a Chianti?
21:12Wine windows have dotted the Florentine streets for nearly 500 years.
21:18They were permitted by the Medici's for wine-producing families
21:21to sell excess stock tax-free from holes cut in their houses.
21:25Who knew such a magical thing existed?
21:30And since the 1600s, they were particularly popular
21:35during the 17th century bubonic plague
21:38and then revived during the Covid-19 pandemic.
21:41But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
21:46You can tell when my voice goes into my boots, it's proper Chianti.
21:50Very full-bodied, very robust.
21:53Chianti Classico.
22:02A heavenly taste of Florence.
22:05But my short time here is nearly at an end
22:08and I will ultimately finish my grand tour in Rome.
22:12A magnet for romantic poets.
22:14So this was Keats' last hope.
22:19Artists.
22:21I want you to just paint me truthfully.
22:24And of course, grand tourists.
22:27I wished.
22:29It was a very good wish.
22:30I'm in Florence, sweeping through Europe, following in the footsteps of the grand tourists
22:44traveling a few hundred years before me.
22:46I think by the time the grand tourists reach this destination, it must have been a balm for the soul of the weary traveler.
22:57Masterpieces wherever they turned.
23:00The grand tourists would have spent months in Florence.
23:04I'm in here for 48 hours.
23:05But there's one last Florentine masterpiece to visit.
23:09You must be Vitulio.
23:11Hi.
23:12Lovely to meet you.
23:14Vitulio Bondi is probably the most famous gelato maker in Italy, with his own TV show and legendary store.
23:21What a dazzling selection.
23:24We are in Florence.
23:26Gelato is like it's born here.
23:28The first gelato was a milk and sugar concoction by Cosimo Ruggeri, who won a cooking competition at the Medici court in the 1500s.
23:38I want you to try, you know ricotta?
23:41Made it with the figs and then walnuts.
23:45Oh, I can really taste the fig.
23:48And then...
23:49That's wonderful.
23:53I feel more Italian with every bite.
23:55Time I left Florence before things get out of hand.
24:00Oh, that is the happiest marriage of flavor.
24:13Replete with gelato, I'm completing the final leg of my grand tour, heading south with my driver Lorenzo, across the Tuscan hills, into the province of Lazio,
24:24to the climax of my journey in Rome.
24:30Oh, gosh.
24:32If a city can give you come hither eyes, she's giving me come hither eyes.
24:38I'm gonna have to obey.
24:40My hero, Lord Byron wrote,
24:46Oh, Rome, my country, city of the soul.
24:50While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand.
24:53When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall.
24:57And when Rome falls, the world.
24:59In the 19th century, the area around the iconic Spanish Steps was known as the English Ghetto.
25:11At its heart is Café Greco, the oldest café in the city.
25:15This is my very first visit to Rome, and I've whipped out my trusty Baedeker.
25:25Rome, known even in antiquity as the Eternal City, the capital of the spiritual empire of the Popes.
25:34And actually, I even found this café through my trusty Baedeker, Café Greco, Via Condotti 86, frequented by the English for luncheon and afternoon tea.
25:47This café was so regularly packed with English intellectuals and artists, that numerous pictures of them remain on the walls.
25:54I can see why it was so beloved.
26:00Well, the coffee is superlative.
26:04Two celebrated English poets, who spent a lot of time in Café Greco, were John Keats and Percy Shelley.
26:11They loved it so much, they took up lodgings across the road.
26:16Ella Kilgallen is curator of the Keats Shelley House.
26:21Hello!
26:22Hi, Tom! Welcome to the Keats Shelley House.
26:25Oh, thank you so much.
26:27So this was Keats' last home?
26:30Yes, this was an apartment that he came to stay in.
26:33Only for a matter of months, when he was unfortunately dying of tuberculosis.
26:35Very, very ill.
26:37He was only 25.
26:38He was 25 when he died, yeah.
26:40Such a kind of genius poet and intellect.
26:44Keats went to Italy on the advice of his doctors, who said another cold winter in London with tuberculosis would kill him.
26:52He arrived in November 1820, but before the following spring, he had died.
26:58And people get very emotional when they come in here, understandably.
27:01In this space where Keats was lying in his kind of last days, and he referred to this as his posthumous existence, his time in Rome, and he would have looked up at the ceiling, imagining already his time buried, essentially, which is so tragic.
27:12Oh, gosh.
27:13Keats' poem, Ode to a Nightingale, is particularly poignant.
27:19Darkling I listen, and for many a time I've been half in love with easeful death, called him soft names in many amused rhyme, to take into the air my quiet breath.
27:33He had very gentle features, very beautiful features.
27:35Yes, I've always thought of him as quite androgynous in a way.
27:38Yes, exactly, exactly.
27:39Very beautiful.
27:40In fact, all of those romantic poets, Byron and Wilde, I think of them as kind of beautiful in the most exquisitely androgynous way.
27:49Absolutely.
27:58Many grand tourists wanted to come to Rome to pay homage to their romantic, poetic heroes.
28:04But away from home for the first time, the guidebook advised them to beware of unofficial guides and insist upon those licensed by municipal authorities.
28:13So my licensed guide and historian is Sylvia Franchi.
28:19Sylvia.
28:20Oh, Tom.
28:22Oh.
28:23Hello.
28:25Hello.
28:26My bear leader.
28:27Oh, my dear.
28:28Oh, yes.
28:29Yes, I am.
28:30I'm so pleased to meet you here, my time traveller.
28:32Yes.
28:33Gosh.
28:34Yes, I am.
28:35I hadn't thought about it like that, but that's exactly what I am.
28:37Yeah.
28:38So you were in a misty London, your major in 1820.
28:42Grey, grey, and then you expect the sun and the beauty and the fountain and the ruins and bam, you are in Rome.
28:51An expert in Roman history, Sylvia is shepherding me to a mussy Roman icon, the Trevi Fountain.
28:59The fountain was designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762.
29:08It's the scene of one of the most famous moments in Italian cinema when Anita Ekberg wades through the fountain with Marcello Mastroanni in Fellini's La Dolce Vita.
29:21Marcello!
29:22Come here!
29:23Hurry up!
29:24My!
29:25It's a proper cascade, isn't it?
29:28And you know the guy there?
29:29That's Oceanus.
29:30Yeah.
29:31The god of the sea.
29:32And he has his sons down there.
29:33So they are blowing through the shell.
29:34So the whole thing is musical.
29:35It's the music of water, but it's that wonderful music that they're making with their conches.
29:49The guidebook said that if you took a sip of the water from the fountain, you would surely return to Rome.
29:57But fears of drinking fountain water meant that the sip evolved into tossing a coin.
30:03You know the rule?
30:04What's the rule?
30:05Right hand, left shoulder.
30:07Okay.
30:08One, two, three.
30:15I wished.
30:16It was a very good wish.
30:18My wish of walking in the footsteps of those grand tourists before me has nearly come to an end.
30:30And I've captured so many treasured memories on my Super 8, including the majestic Spanish steps.
30:37Oh, this is my Cecil Beaton moment.
30:41The grand tourists had another way to remember their travels with a painting.
30:47Christophe, you.
30:49Angelo?
30:50Yes, hi?
30:51Tom.
30:52Hi.
30:53Hello.
30:54Oh.
30:55Artist Angelo Bellabono has agreed to take on the daunting task of turning my face into a work of art.
31:04You're welcome.
31:05You're welcome to my studio.
31:06Roman studio.
31:07This is the studio.
31:08Yes.
31:09I just love your style. I sort of want you to be my Pompeo Bertone.
31:14Oh, Pompeo. Yes.
31:17Yes.
31:18Pompeo Bertone was probably the most famous 18th century portrait artist who specialized
31:25in painting grand tourists. They wanted something, basically the early version of an Instagram
31:32filter, but I want you to just paint me truthfully.
31:36It's a contemporary grand tour, basically.
31:39Yes. Yes.
31:40With a contemporary commission.
31:42Well, we can try, absolutely.
31:51This is a completely new experience for me. I've never even been in a studio space like this before.
31:59Tom, don't move too much because I need to catch the beginning of your eyes.
32:05I always start this portrait from the eyes.
32:10I love to do the portrait in presence.
32:12Yes.
32:13But I like also to be with my own self facing the portrait.
32:19And then it sort of begins to have a life of its own.
32:23Absolutely.
32:25I'll leave Angelo to his art and come back to see his creation in a couple of days.
32:31That was an extraordinary experience with Angelo because he has this sort of penetrative gaze.
32:40And he was looking far beyond me into my being.
32:46It was incredibly intimate.
32:48It was like nothing I have ever done before in my life.
32:53Grand tourists didn't only come to Rome to have their portraits painted.
33:04The main draw was an obsession with ancient Rome.
33:08Time to bring out my little red book.
33:10It's lovely to think that this was also liberally thumbed by grand tourists of the romantic age before me.
33:18Appian Way visits were sine qua non.
33:23Oh, well, duly noted.
33:27The Appian Way was built in 312 BC and is over 300 miles long.
33:34It was the main route linking the south of Italy with Rome.
33:38This road looks so much a part of the land.
33:42You can tell it's ancient.
33:46This is the queen of all roads.
33:48Wow.
33:49Like a highway, but with carriages.
33:51I can imagine grand tourists coming, especially the literary ones.
33:58This road must kind of hold a thousand tales in it.
34:02For sure.
34:03You know who was Spartacus?
34:05Oh, yes.
34:06Spartacus' army with 6,000 slaves was defeated in the end.
34:11And there was a big punishment right here.
34:14These 6,000 slaves have been crucified, then beheaded along the Appian Way.
34:21So, more than enough ghosts around to inspire a story or two, Lord Byron wrote of Rome's ruins that they were wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.
34:35Oh, gosh!
34:36The mark of the wheel!
34:38Isn't that extraordinary?
34:42That is an ancient impression.
34:45You can touch the history directly.
34:48Yes, yes.
34:51My own grand tour has nearly been confined to history.
34:58As I perform my last act,
35:01Inadvertently induce tears,
35:08Have a lovely evening.
35:11And confront my painted self.
35:14Oh, I say!
35:26I'm on the last leg of my grand tour, blazing a trail through Europe, just like those intrepid aristocrats of yesteryear.
35:34Though sated on their sumptuous diet of history and art, young grand tourists were equally keen to learn the art of seduction.
35:43And one of the most popular ways to impress a potential lover in Rome was to serenade them.
35:53It seems that I can't turn in the fave.
35:58Fabrizio and Ezio are masters of traditional Roman stornelli, rhyming serenades full of humour and innuendo, and they've kindly agreed to audition me for a part in their band of serenading brothers.
36:14very traditional roman song your voice is heavenly but you are singer yes i'm not like you guys but
36:24i do i love it i love singing you prefer romantic song yes i i i i also is uh uh i have this song
36:34do you know part two pamarotti yes yes i know the paparotti version you must put heart big heart
36:44oh
37:10big
37:14Nice to meet you.
37:15Nice to meet you.
37:16Bravo.
37:17We bring you with us to sing.
37:20Oh.
37:21We bring.
37:22What?
37:23To?
37:24Yes.
37:25To perform?
37:26Yes, to perform.
37:27Grazie.
37:28Grazie infinite.
37:31Well, when in Rome.
37:33But before I bring the curtain down on my grand tour,
37:36oh, there's a painting to collect.
37:38Hello.
37:40The moment of truth, Angelo.
37:43Come in.
37:44Oh, I say.
37:50Angelo has made some smaller trial paintings of me
37:53that are completely unexpected.
37:56So strange, because I've been following
37:59in the grand tourist's footsteps.
38:02This sort of romantic look from the early 19th century.
38:09The other thing I love about this is the cloudiness of gender.
38:14Yeah.
38:15There's something extremely feminine in that.
38:19And then a little bit more romantic masculine in that.
38:25And then totally androgynous here.
38:29Yeah.
38:31But I can see that you've seen beyond my face.
38:34Way beyond my face.
38:38That's all in the eyes.
38:40Exactly.
38:41Exactly.
38:42And now for the big reveal.
38:48Oh, gosh.
38:54Oh, it's extraordinary.
38:55Extraordinary.
38:59I really think that you are a genius.
39:03And you've given me a beautiful truth.
39:14It's wonderful.
39:15Wonderful.
39:19It was most extraordinary.
39:21I was sort of looking at some love child of
39:25Keith, Byron and Wilde.
39:28And yet I still recognized myself.
39:33It's all about the impact of the art on the soul
39:37and the impact of the people.
39:40And in this case, the people that make the art.
39:45That's what I'll carry with me.
39:49And now it's my turn to hopefully make an artistic impact.
39:57We've come to the best vista in Rome to do it.
40:00And hopefully we'll find some lovers
40:03and help them along a little.
40:06That's what it's all about.
40:09Rome's Gianicolo Teres, with its views over the whole city,
40:13is the place to come with a young lover.
40:16So it's the perfect place for a serenade.
40:18For a serenade.
40:48I'm not sure crying was the effect I was going for let's hope their tears of joy and love I can
41:08see why it's been going for hundreds of years because it's so romantic oh ciao that's it
41:15it's still going on it's a tranche of heaven I don't know what to tell you I am on cloud nine
41:25I'm like a dog with three tails four tails as many as it's allowed
41:29the grand tour was expected to have a life-changing effect on those young free and single adventurers
41:40of yesteryear through exposure to master tutors and masterpieces my version has certainly changed me
41:49I will treasure this trip for the rest of my life it has transfigured me feels extraordinary
42:04to me that I go back to my little flat in London tonight an entirely different person
42:12it consumed me and I'm consumed by it you can't I think visit the great cities of France and Italy
42:29and not be utterly transfigured and you can't have that sort of art in your orbit and it not penetrate
42:38your very soul I'm in love with it I'm in love with it that's that's all there is to say
42:48it's so affecting if you can possibly do it do it it will change you forever that's a solemn promise
43:01a story that sent shockwaves around the world and left a royal in disgrace fergie and the fake
43:22shake scandal brand new tomorrow at 20 past nine next jane mcdonald embarks on the first south
43:28american leg of her new pole to pole adventure and she's in for a few surprises in uruguay
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