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The Orient Express A Golden Era of Travel Season 1 Episode 2
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00:00For over a hundred years, the Orient Express, the world's most iconic train, crossed Europe.
00:13If you would be traveling on the Orient Express in its golden age, this is the kind of carriage
00:18you would be traveling on. Until its withdrawal, the train tied Europe together. Prince Ferdinand
00:26was quoted in saying that the Orient Express is of vital interest to us.
00:31A service famed for its glamour and luxury.
00:36This space was for the creme de la creme, the best of the best.
00:40That became world famous.
00:42The Cold War made the Orient Express the hotbed of spice.
00:47And whose legacy is still felt.
00:50Let's say 150 years ago you came here with the Orient Express, you would have seen exactly
00:55the same mosque of today.
01:00In this series, we'll take a 2,000 mile journey across Europe.
01:06It's always a very exciting moment when we are doing a route for the first time.
01:11And follow a new luxury train as it retraces the fabled route, exploring the history of
01:18a golden age of train travel along the way.
01:30In the golden age of rail, a single ticket on the Orient Express network took passengers
01:35from London all the way to Istanbul, the gateway to the east.
01:40Twenties, Wagon Lee, the company that ran the Orient Express, had a luxury train network
01:47that stretched across three continents.
01:51At the core of this network were their multiple Orient Express services.
01:57After crossing the channel, passengers from London would board an Orient Express train in Paris
02:03before travelling through southern Germany and Austria on their way towards Turkey.
02:13On this part of the legendary journey, luxury transformed…
02:17…what you see here is the translation of the Orient Express idea into individual mobility.
02:27…a unique artistic form…
02:29…here we store about six to seven hundred different puppets.
02:34…and Hitler's dark obsession.
02:37It showed that the Nazi were able to run the Orient Express just as well as another country.
02:45From 1883 until 2007, the Orient Express left Paris daily, heading east.
02:57Although it's been years since the legendary train last left Paris, modern luxury trains still
03:03visit the city to follow in its footsteps.
03:06It's always a very exciting moment when we are doing a route for the first time.
03:14Dori Keres, the chief cabin attendant, is making the final preparations before the first passengers arrive aboard the Golden Eagle Danube Express.
03:24It's all about us striving for perfection.
03:28To give our guests a journey of a lifetime and for them to know that the moment they step on board,
03:36we'll do our best to attend to all their needs and they really don't have to worry about any of the details,
03:42because everything is going to be taken care of.
03:45It's not really about getting from one city to another, but really enjoying the time in between, the time spent on board,
03:53and just doing a journey in a very relaxed and also in a very stylish way and mingle with other guests.
04:00It's a great honour to be travelling at the footsteps of the Great Orient Express.
04:06The Gare de Lyon is one of Paris's most impressive stations.
04:16It opened in 1899 and became a symbol of early 20th century luxury.
04:22It's here where Europe's elite would board Le Train Bleu to the French Riviera, a sister service to the Orient Express.
04:31In 1901, a restaurant was opened above the station to cater to the great and the good before they boarded their luxury trains.
04:41Today, it's hosting the passengers waiting to board the Golden Eagle Danube Express's inaugural service from Paris to Istanbul.
04:52Back on the platform, the final preparations are complete.
04:56For Dori, this is the most exciting part of the journey.
05:00With all 64 passengers and 38 crew on board, it's time to depart.
05:07As the train begins its journey through France, it springs to life.
05:23In the kitchens, preparations begin for the first meal on board, as the two dining carriages are prepared and guests settle into their cabins.
05:34For the next six days, this train is a luxury hotel on wheels.
05:40For Bill Tenor, this trip is a dream come true.
05:45We've always dreamed to go on the Orient Express and all the magical, historical, mythical characters and events that occurred on it.
05:55I think we all like the mystery, the romance, the excitement.
06:00When you travel on a train like this, what are you really doing?
06:03You're going back in history, you're living a life that's bygone, back into the days of Hercule Poirot and murder on the Orient Express.
06:12And so there's a certain magic, a certain comfort, a certain fantasy.
06:19Bill has high expectations for this luxurious journey.
06:24We came along with the expectations of sort of reliving, if you like, history and having a darn good look at a lot of nice geography, but in a very relaxed and very convenient and comfortable way.
06:36And I think just to travel across Europe by train is quite unique. When you fly, you see nothing.
06:42Here, not only do you see things, you're embedded in them.
06:46At the heart of the train is its bar car, named Balaton.
06:54It's here guests sit, relax and enjoy a tipple or two.
07:00From its very first journey, the Orient Express was known for its champagne.
07:06In the 1950s, the company had 18,000 bottles in their stores, ready to be loaded onto the trains.
07:12It was served ice cold to passengers as views of the region's vineyards rolled by.
07:21It's a tradition that this luxury train proudly continues.
07:28During its golden era, it took the Orient Express almost eight hours to reach its first border crossing.
07:36Just outside Strasbourg, it switched engines and continued into Germany.
07:42One of its first stops was Fortsheim.
07:48Over 250 years ago, a Frenchman set up a pocket watch factory here.
07:55By 1913, more than half its residents worked in the city's jewellery and watchmaking industries.
08:01It soon became known as Goldstadt, or the Golden City, with the Orient Express connecting the merchants to wealthy clientele.
08:11Even today, around 75% of Germany's jewellery is made here.
08:16One of its most influential designers is Victor Meyer.
08:23Victor Meyer was my great-grandfather, and he was a typical son of Fortsheim in the late 19th century.
08:30He was trained as a goldsmith at the world-famous Fortsheim Jewelry School.
08:34And after that, he spent four or five years in Vienna learning more about jewellery making.
08:42Today, Dr. Marcus Moyer is carrying on the family business.
08:47One that, from the very beginning, relied on the Orient Express.
08:52You cannot just sell from a catalogue. You have to meet your customers to understand what they really need.
09:01But also, it was important to see the trends in real life.
09:06The Orient Express helped make Art Nouveau, with its flowing lines and natural motifs, fashionable in the late 19th century.
09:16It was an aesthetic that Victor Meyer embraced wholeheartedly.
09:19You arrived in Paris at 7 o'clock in the morning.
09:24You spent the day getting inspired, and in the evening you travelled home on the Orient Express, back to Fortsheim.
09:34By the 1920s, Fortsheim was one of the largest jewellery manufacturers in the world, employing more than 30,000 people.
09:41Today, in one of their workshops, Victor Meyer is making the company's iconic signet rings.
09:51Signet rings go back to the Roman times, and also in the 19th century they were very popular.
09:57So, when riding the Orient Express, you would have seen many signet rings.
10:01I can show you here our engraver.
10:06She's now engraving a pattern of leaves of a signet ring.
10:11That's a work that takes hours, but that's the beauty of the pieces, that they're really intricate.
10:15And of course, for signet rings, you have to engrave a coat of arms, either in stone or in gold.
10:26And it's a technique that was used predominantly in the 19th century.
10:32After the engraving, the last step of production is giving it a beautiful shine and polish.
10:40So what we see here, the stone has already been set, and the surface of the gold is full of scratches and little indentations.
10:48And she's now cleaning the surface.
10:51So here, she's spending a lot of time to make sure that it has a smooth surface.
10:56It's like a surgery. If you use too much pressure, you destroy the shape.
11:04Markus is proud to keep alive traditional techniques.
11:08Engraving a gemstone or engraving metal is something that is almost lost.
11:13We think there's not more than 30 people who can still engrave a stone like that in Germany.
11:19It's an almost died-out art.
11:26The client that buys our product today is probably a similar personality than the customer who was using the Oran Express in the 19th century.
11:37Because they loved design, they loved elegance, they loved style.
11:42And it's really a heritage that we are very proud of.
11:56After stopping in Forzheim, the train pushed onwards heading for the industrial city of Stuttgart.
12:08Stuttgart's setting in the Necker Valley posed serious challenges for railway engineers.
12:13For over 100 years, the city's station has been a terminus, as the geography prevented a through line.
12:22Meaning Orient Express passengers would have changed locomotives here, then reversed out the way they came.
12:29The city's steep hills have inspired unique engineering solutions.
12:36Stuttgart's trams, for example, are powered through every wheel to climb the slope.
12:42For the steepest hills, an ingenious rack railway was built.
12:48Affectionately known as the Seeker, cogs under the trains connect with racks on the track to pull the trains upwards.
12:55While the trams are a recent addition, there's still a railway that would feel familiar to passengers on the Orient Express.
13:07Since 1929, the Stuttgart cable car has carried people from the city to the forest cemetery above.
13:15The original carriages are still in use today.
13:19Handcrafted from teak and adorned with brass and enamel, passengers are transported back to the golden age of railways.
13:32Deep underground is still the original machinery from the 1920s.
13:38Every 20 minutes, it springs to life, pulling a 550-metre cable which connects to the two cars.
13:45This unique train is still part of Stuttgart's public transport network and offers a glimpse of the 1920s glamour of the Orient Express.
13:55Founded around 950 AD. By the late 19th century, Stuttgart was thriving. The city industrialized and became a manufacturing hub.
14:14In the 1880s, it became central to a revolutionary new form of transport. The brainchild of engineer Carl Benz.
14:25Marcus Breitschwert is head of Mercedes-Benz heritage.
14:34And its museum is home to over 160 vehicles, from the earliest models to the most covetable.
14:43It all started with this.
14:46Okay, so what you see here is basically the first patented car in the world.
14:55Invented in 1886 by Carl Benz.
14:59It's a four-stroke engine with a flying wheel here, with a flat belt.
15:04Wheels which then transfer the power straight here down.
15:11And here you have the chains which give the car the power to drive.
15:16Two passengers can sit here.
15:19A little bit of a, let's say, delicate steering.
15:23And here's the handbrake.
15:26There is only one gear forward and no reverse.
15:31It went up to 15 kilometers an hour, which doesn't sound very impressive, but it was by far faster than any pedestrian could go.
15:43And so big step forward in the history of mankind's mobility.
15:49For decades, inventors had been trying to create a vehicle driven by a combustion engine.
15:58Other inventors got close, but Carl Benz was the first to design, build and test one.
16:05Supported by his wife, Berta.
16:08She was wealthy.
16:10He could invest a lot of money into founding his own company.
16:14Without his wife, Carl Benz, as gifted, talented and dedicated he was, he never would have made it.
16:23She basically did the most important marketing stint in the history of the car.
16:31As she decided to take her two sons and to travel from Mannheim, where they lived, to the city of Pforzheim, which is a hundred kilometers.
16:46And afterwards, it was quite clear, this machine doesn't kill anybody and can be maneuvered by a woman and her sons.
16:57As luxury cars were developed in Stuttgart, inspiration was taken from the Orient Express.
17:07So when the Orient Express would stop at Stuttgart on a regular base, people in this area were absolutely thrilled about it.
17:19It was also a measurement how luxury, driven by style, could be translated into the new product of luxury cars.
17:33By the 1930s, Mercedes Benz cars had become faster and more technologically advanced.
17:39A world apart from the genteel charm of a journey on the Orient Express.
17:47But the two had more in common than you might think.
17:52This now is in the 30s.
17:56The ultimate luxury at that time.
17:59Very much inspired by the Pullman cars.
18:02Pullman railway cars were invented by American George Pullman in 1859.
18:10A concept so successful, it inspired the Orient Express.
18:15Mercedes Benz customers expected their cars to offer the same level of exclusivity and comfort.
18:21Drive was really to match and to even outdo the luxury of those cars.
18:32This one is a masterpiece of what has been possible at that time.
18:38You have an advanced suspension compared to anything else.
18:42Very long wheelbase. As you see, it's a wide vehicle with a wide stance.
18:47It has a very strong engine for the time.
18:51The top speed is around 100 miles an hour, roughly.
18:57This 770 Grand Mercedes was built for Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
19:03And it comes with some unique features.
19:05This one is armored and very solid.
19:12What you can see also here on the crescent theme.
19:15The flower here, which is the emperor's specific flower.
19:21And if you look here into the inside, that was the ultimate luxury.
19:26And you have a window inside which you can move up.
19:30And also you have here the special seat for a direct adjunct to the monarch.
19:39Now, what you see here is the driver had a ladder seat.
19:44And the passenger was sitting on the finest fabric available.
19:50Nowadays, the ladder is more expensive than fabric.
19:54Those days, it was the other way around.
19:56And you couldn't get anything more expensive and more advanced than this car.
20:04What you see here is basically the translation of the Orient Express idea into individual mobility, individual use.
20:15Mercedes-Benz continues to innovate in Stuttgart.
20:23Today, new battery technology is being developed that aims to end the era of fossil fuel powered cars.
20:3014 hours after leaving Paris, having traveled almost 1,000 kilometers through France and Germany, the Orient Express approached Munich.
20:45The city was a railway hub where routes across Europe converged.
20:55It was a key stop for the Orient Express.
20:58But not just for its passengers.
21:01The Orient Express was obsessed with making sure that everything was perfect at all times.
21:05To maintain the train's high standards, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagonlis opened workshops all over Europe.
21:15One of the largest was here, in Munich.
21:19For decades, it's been shut off to the public.
21:23But there are still some who remember it as it was.
21:26Wow!
21:34Andreas Braun knew this place during its final years of operation in the 1970s.
21:42It's very fine to see it again.
21:47This is the first time he's been back in 25 years.
21:50It was very busy. I think in this hall, about 20, 20 people are working, 20, 30 people.
22:00Yeah, very nice to see this again.
22:04Although it's now used for storage, the building is much as Andreas remembers it.
22:10I think the building is original and we see it here.
22:15The parts are from the architecture of this time, 1910 to 1920.
22:26If an Orient Express carriage developed a fault, it will be brought here.
22:31Wagons come in here and we had a platform for the part of the cars.
22:38They were cleaned.
22:40And then there, they will be checked.
22:42Every carriage underwent a thorough inspection.
22:47Wheels, axles, suspension and brakes were carefully checked for signs of wear.
22:53Even the woodwork, upholstery and wiring were examined.
22:56The beds, toilets, washrooms, electric and so on is most in a bad condition and so you have to renew it.
23:09The windows came out and normally for a big repair, all metal parts will be sandblasted and then fresh coated.
23:20The workshop opened in 1913 and is just one of four on a site that covered 60,000 square meters and employed over 560 workers.
23:33Here was very busy electricians, carpenters, steel workers, engineers and so on.
23:45Normally here were six carriages. One was inside for wagons waiting for getting here on this track out to service back again.
23:55The big windows and arched roofs may be impressive, but they made the workshop bitterly cold in the winter.
24:05Here is one of the old heating engines, oil burnt.
24:09These boilers gave the warm hole here inside. I remember very cold winters here, yeah.
24:16The workers, they need about 18, 20, 21 centigrade inside for working because you have to do with little screws and so on.
24:28It took six to eight weeks to fully repair and refurbish a carriage and get it back up to the Orient Express's exacting standard.
24:36The workshop closed in 2000, but it's found a new life with members of the local community.
24:46Meaning that where once Orient Express carriages were serviced, now cars are being rebuilt.
24:52Munich has long been considered one of Germany's most beautiful cities.
25:09Its ancient streets were transformed from 1876 when the first tramway was installed.
25:15The railways were central to Munich, with the Orient Express the jewel in its crown.
25:22But in the 1920s, Munich was home to a man who hated the Orient Express.
25:28Adolf Hitler.
25:30So we are now in the area of Munich where the Nazi party had organised all the most important administrative offices.
25:44One of the most important buildings used to be the so-called Führerbau.
25:50That was the office of Adolf Hitler.
25:53Valerie Kiefer is a tour guide who specialises in the city's dark past.
26:01And here around us, in all the buildings, we had the administrative offices of the Nazis.
26:09As the Orient Express was at its most popular in the 1920s,
26:14Hitler's rise to power began here as he attempted to overthrow the German government.
26:19With about 2,000 members of the Nazi party, he will go from one of the most important breweries of that time,
26:32intending a military coup inside the city.
26:37The plotters hoped to march on Berlin, but they only made it as far as Munich's city centre,
26:43where there was a gun battle with the police.
26:4516 Nazis were killed.
26:49And Hitler was arrested and condemned to five years of prison.
26:57During this time, he was able to write the book Mein Kampf.
27:04Whilst writing Mein Kampf, Hitler came to see Germany's defeat in World War I
27:09as a national humiliation that needed re-addressing.
27:13His anger centred on Germany's surrender in 1918,
27:17which was signed in a carriage owned by the company that ran the Orient Express.
27:22They chose a coach belonging to one of the famous trains, the Societe de Waggonlie, in France.
27:33And this wagon was actually the mobile office of the Maréchal Foch.
27:39Ferdinand Foch was the commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, who negotiated the armistice.
27:49It was a symbol for the capitulation of Germany after the First World War.
27:55And so France was one of the countries that forced Germany to sign.
28:00During his rise to power, Hitler came to see this coach as a symbol of Germany's humiliation.
28:09When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, it was firmly on Hitler's mind.
28:14So the coach was, from the beginning on, for Hitler, such a strong symbol to show France that Nazi Germany was able to find his strength again,
28:31and to use those symbols against France.
28:36The railway carriage was taken back to the same forest in northern France,
28:40where, in a reversal of history, the French were forced to sign a humiliating surrender.
28:50Hitler was able to transform a symbol of defeat to a symbol of triumph.
29:00Even then, Hitler's hatred of the Orient Express was not satiated.
29:05He tore up all the country's contracts with the famous train.
29:08It was not able to travel through Germany and Austria.
29:13And the normal way would have been from Paris to Istanbul, but we had a big gap in the middle of it, so it could not run anymore.
29:21Determined to show that the Orient Express wasn't special, Hitler seized the Orient Express carriages in Germany,
29:29and established his own Nazi-run alternative.
29:31And the carriages that were inside Germany were only used for the most important Nazi members of the party,
29:42and used as a kind of privilege for them.
29:46It was just a propaganda coup, and it showed actually that the Nazi were able to run the Orient Express just as well as another country.
29:57The Nazi-run train became a target for the French resistance, often with help from Orient Express staff, who knew the carriages well.
30:10Seven conductors were executed for their part in the resistance.
30:16Many others were sent to concentration camps.
30:19It wasn't just Orient Express conductors who stood up to Hitler.
30:31As the war dragged on, resistance to the Nazis reached Munich too, sparked by young soldiers shaken by the atrocities they had witnessed on the Eastern Front.
30:43They realised what the Nazi regime is doing there, and they start to fight against this politic, trying to motivate the Munich population to criticise the Nazi regime.
30:57Called the White Rose, the resistance movement was founded by students at Munich University, and included medical student Hans Scholl.
31:10Hans Scholl has a sister, she was called Sophie Scholl, and as she entered into the movement, she was only 19 years old, a very young woman,
31:20very deeply convinced that what they are doing is the right thing.
31:24The students wrote a series of pamphlets denouncing Nazi war crimes, which they distributed here in the university.
31:33But they were aware that they were being watched.
31:37Really scared of what is going to happen, they are absolutely conscient of the danger they are in.
31:43Sophie Scholl will take the last pamphlet she has in her bag, and she will throw them from the balcony into the courtyard of the university.
31:52And this is the proof that we needed to arrest her and the two other members.
32:03They will get brought to the Gestapo. There they will be tortured and found guilty.
32:1048 hours later, they will be guillotined.
32:20The group's final pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany after their death,
32:25and later dropped by the Allies across the nation to change public perception of Nazism.
32:30So this is the little memorial of the White Roses.
32:41This little memorial shows although Munich was the capital of the Nazi party,
32:47not everybody agreed with the dictator.
32:49After the war, Waggonli began reclaiming their lost trains, which had been turned into military outposts, even brothels.
33:05Many were simply abandoned.
33:06On the 27th of September 1945, just four months after VE Day, the first Orient Express left Paris for Athens.
33:19It wasn't luxurious, but it signalled the rebirth of the legendary network.
33:24The Golden Eagle Danube Express, a modern luxury train, is en route to Istanbul, following in the footsteps of the Orient Express in its heyday.
33:43Every morning, as the sun rises, passengers head to breakfast.
33:51On the Orient Express, guests had a choice of omelettes, grilled fish, toast and pastries, all made to order.
33:59But as the guests ate, the cabin attendants sprang into action.
34:04I've seen the guests going away to have some breakfast, so their room is probably empty, but one never knows.
34:11So we always knock.
34:15Nobody answers.
34:18Excuse me.
34:20It seems the room is empty, so now we go in, let some light in.
34:29And a bit of fresh air.
34:33And the next thing we do here is to shake the duvet to air it a bit.
34:39In its heyday, the sleeping compartments on the Orient Express were the most luxurious way to travel.
34:47Beds were made up with silk sheets, the finest woolen blankets and eider-down comforters.
34:53Then the pillows come, and then I will just lift this part of the bed and push it in, goes right there.
35:08Then I lift the other part and take out the pillows.
35:12With the bedclothes neatly packed away, Ildi Sekeres makes the room day-ready.
35:19So we are putting down the pillows into the corner, like that.
35:24So the big one comes here to support the back, and this one is to support the arms.
35:35Every morning, Orient Express conductors would perform much the same routine.
35:39It's amazing that what I'm doing here, they were doing that on the Orient Express a hundred years ago.
35:50The Orient Express conductors were famous.
35:53They were required to be available at all times, and were expected to uphold the strictest discretion.
35:59Many served much of their life on the train.
36:02So I've been working on this train four years, I enjoy it very much, especially meeting new people.
36:10The guests are very, very kind, joyful, relaxed people.
36:16And it's just fun to be of use.
36:32After the Orient Express left Paris, it was around a thousand-mile journey to reach southern Germany.
36:42Once they had travelled through Stuttgart and Munich, their next stop was the ancient Austrian city of Salzburg.
36:50A booming salt-mining town in the Middle Ages.
36:53Salzburg's atmospheric old town has barely changed in centuries, with ornate guild signs still hanging from its buildings.
37:06Orient Express passengers who left the train here were directed to its historic Mirabel Gardens and its ancient religious sites.
37:15A subject that's close to tour guide Heidi Hochreiser's heart.
37:25Here we are, in the oldest convent, the convent of Nornberg, which was founded over 1,300 years ago.
37:35And at the moment, there are about 11 nuns living here, in a very strict cloister.
37:42But they have a wonderful place.
37:46This is the first time the nuns have ever allowed filming within the walls of the convent.
37:53It was founded by Rupert.
37:57Rupert was a bishop from Worms.
38:01In the year 696 he came to Salzburg.
38:04He founded two monasteries, St. Peter and this one here.
38:09In the 1920s, it became home to a woman who would make Salzburg famous.
38:16Maria Augusta von Kuchera, the real-life Maria in the sound of music.
38:23There was a family, a baron.
38:26He had seven children and was widowed.
38:29So he needed somebody for his children.
38:31He needed a teacher.
38:32He went up here.
38:34He went to Mother Superior and said,
38:37Have you got somebody who helps me educating my children?
38:42And she said, Take Maria.
38:46Because Maria was a very, very lively person.
38:50She loved children.
38:52But first, she hesitated.
38:55She was an orphan.
38:56Her mother died when she was a few months old.
38:59Her father died when she was three.
39:02And she had an awful childhood.
39:04The person who was in charge with her, an uncle, was a nasty person.
39:11He was beating her up every day for things that she hadn't done.
39:15And so when she grew up, she went to Salzburg.
39:20Here she was in peace and nothing would harm her.
39:27Maria accepted the job.
39:29And when her contract finished, she returned to the convent.
39:34The children were very sad.
39:36They wanted her back.
39:38So the baron asked her to marry him.
39:39This is the church where Maria and the Baron of Trapp got married in 1927.
39:49It was a wonderful wedding.
39:51She wore a beautiful long white dress.
39:54And it must have been a wonderful day with the children around them.
39:59The Baron was a great violin player.
40:02He was a musician.
40:03He loved music.
40:04But she came with her guitar.
40:06Suddenly, they became a real wire.
40:16By March 1938, the von Trapp's idyllic existence was threatened when the Nazis marched into Austria.
40:25And the family was asked to sing at Hitler's birthday.
40:31Of course they didn't want to sing for Hitler.
40:33So they decided to go to America.
40:38And in America, they became a very, very famous choir.
40:42They called themselves the Trapp family singers.
40:45And they toured the whole of America.
40:48They toured South America, everywhere.
40:50And didn't come back to Austria.
40:52They only came back for visits.
40:53The von Trapp's became so well known that by the 1950s and 1960s, Orient Express passengers knew the city primarily for the family.
41:05In 1965, the film The Sound of Music, largely filmed in the city, kicked the fame into overdrive.
41:1460 years on, the story is still celebrated somewhere that would have been familiar to Orient Express passengers.
41:21Salzburg's 110-year-old Marionette Theatre.
41:26The Marionette Theatre is a very special institution.
41:31It was founded in 1913 by sculptor Anton Eicher.
41:36When I was six years old, I visited this theatre for the first time.
41:43And after my studies, I came here to do this as a profession.
41:51Philipp Brunner has been with the company for the last 22 years and is now its artistic director.
41:56We mostly do plays, we do operas, we do ballets, we do children's performances and also musical, like The Sound of Music, which is also very important in Salzburg, of course.
42:13So here's our puppet room.
42:17Here we store about six to seven hundred different puppets.
42:21These are the puppets of The Sound of Music here.
42:26And now I will grab one and show you how we perform.
42:36This special little control was also created by Anton Eicher.
42:42As he wanted his puppets to move like small human beings with very organic movements.
42:52But it needs a lot of dexterity and a lot of sensitivity.
42:58And it needs, of course, the experience of many years.
43:03We have this little T-shaped piece of wood below a small triangle where three strings are fixed for the head.
43:16And we have this little stick in front where we move the arms.
43:21And if we lean this T-piece to the left and to the right, the puppet can walk.
43:28Yeah?
43:31You never watch what your fingers up here are doing.
43:37You only look down to the puppet.
43:40Move like this.
43:42It's like that we are hidden actors.
43:44We build and make all the puppets here in the house and also the sets.
43:55So the puppeteers are not only playing the performances but also making the puppets.
44:01So the relation between puppeteer and the puppet is very close.
44:05They all have strings so we cannot take off the clothes.
44:09We have to build puppets if there is a costume change.
44:14We have three sets of children in different costumes for Maria.
44:18We have five different puppets.
44:21And we have a lot of scenery that needs to be moved around during the show.
44:27And what is especially difficult in the Sound of Music is all the dancing.
44:31You have always nearly at least eight to ten puppets on stage.
44:39So it needs a lot of technique to make the puppets go around,
44:44to have them passed on from one player to another.
44:49Yeah, it's quite a tricky show.
44:50Since the Sound of Music was first performed in 2007, it has become one of the theatre's most popular shows.
44:59I think it's very important to show the local audience and audience from Germany that something like the Sound of Music exists and that it is connected to their history as well.
45:17So we are very happy to have this show in our repertoire and to keep it alive.
45:30Salzburg Station, built in 1860, is today home to Austria's premier high-speed trains, the rail jets.
45:37But once it had the Orient Express stop on its platforms.
45:42As passengers breathed in the crisp air, engineers prepped the engine for the next stage of the journey towards Vienna.
45:50As the train pulled out of Salzburg, its next challenge was clear for all to see.
45:57The Alps.
46:04Next time.
46:06A shocking attack.
46:08It exploded and the locomotive and four carriages fell down to the abyss.
46:14A close escape.
46:16It was extremely dangerous and Freud of course spent the most horrible hours of his life.
46:21And a rare survivor.
46:22It was a luxurious carriage from top to bottom.
46:26Top to bottom.
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