Michael Portillo travels on the great train routes of Europe, as he retraces the journeys featured in George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

Michael Portillo travels on the great train routes of Europe, as he retraces the journeys featured in George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

Armed with his 1913 railway guide, Michael Portillo returns to his native Spain to discover what the intrepid tourists of the Belle Epoque experienced on their travels through the fading Spanish empire. Hard on their heels in Madrid, he visits the scene of a grim assassination attempt at the royal wedding of a British princess and a Spanish king.
Striking south to historic Cordoba, Michael dances with an unusual partner and enjoys all the fun of the feria. Heading further into Andalusia, Michael arrives in Seville, the city he has made his Spanish home, and where, in the city's tobacco factory, he learns about a gypsy girl named Carmen.
After sipping sherry in Jerez, he traces Winston Churchill's tense diplomatic mission to Algeciras on Spain's Costa del Sol and finishes with tales of British espionage on the Rock of Gibraltar.

Because it made possible rapid movement and shipping across large distances, joining far-off towns to economic and cultural capitals, many people who lived in the early 19th century regarded the railroad as an instrument of progress. Because anyone with the price of a ticket could board a train, regardless of social class, the railroad was also seen as a democratizing technology.