Episode list

Philippe Gougler begins his discovery of San Francisco with the iconic "cable cars", the streetcars that climb the city's steep hills, offering panoramic views. He also discovers other, more modern ways of getting around, such as autonomous cars, driver-less vehicles that navigate the streets of San Francisco. Philippe then climbs aboard the Coastal Starlight, a legendary line offering spectacular views of the Californian coast as far as Santa Barbara. The globetrotter's journey continues in San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge, symbol of the city. Finally, he crosses the majestic forests of giant sequoia trees on a steam train.

Philippe Gougler begins his stay on a station platform where most travelers are dressed in traditional Bavarian garb. They're all going to Munich for the famous Oktoberfest beer festival. Philippe meets some amazing waitresses who can carry up to twelve mugs at a time. Then it's off to the south of the region, where a cogwheel train takes travelers and hikers to Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze. This is an opportunity for Philippe to discover typical Bavarian landscapes, such as Neuschwanstein Castle. Back in Munich, he learns that Bavaria is also an industrial region. Trains even enter factories. Finally, the railway globetrotter takes the ICE, Germany's high-speed train, north.

Philippe Gougler is off to Slovenia, a small European country wedged between sea and mountains. And what better way to discover this little-known country than by train? To begin with, he climbs aboard a small mine train that takes him deep into the mountains to discover sunken tunnels. Then there are the everyday trains, and the more unusual ones that climb the mountains, with cars and auto-trains on board, running on tracks dating back to the Austro-Hungarian era.

Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia, and the ninth largest in the world, and it's by train that Philippe Gougler sets out to discover this little-known giant and its inhabitants. Philippe will travel from canyons, where he will get close to eagles, to endless steppes where a horse breeder continues the tradition of the nomads who once inhabited the country. During this journey, he is constantly amazed by the contrasts of this country, especially when discovering Almaty, the most populated city, which still retains traces of the Soviet era in an ocean of greenery. It's near the capital Astana, a veritable showcase for the country's modernity, that Philippe meets a former train depot foreman who continues his passion in an astonishing way.

The journey begins in Rio de Janeiro, where he travels on a highly original commuter train. It sells everything, and even has a masseur offering his services directly in the carriages. Philippe then took the world's largest train, which travelled through the north-east of the country and crossed part of the Amazon rainforest. A forest rich in biodiversity and also in unusual rituals. Like the rite of passage to adulthood for the young members of the Satere-Mawe tribe: they have to have their hands stung by poisonous ants. After this encounter, we head south to Campo De Jordao, where the Brazilians can discover a piece of Europe without leaving their country. To round off the trip, the Brazilians head for the Atlantic coast, where a sail-powered tugboat will take Philippe on a journey powered only by the wind.

Wedged between its two big neighbours, Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay is a small South American country with a great railway history. But it now has just one passenger train, which runs from Rivera to Tacuarembó. It's a colourful train, much loved by the inhabitants of the pampas. This journey takes Philippe to the gauchos, the South American cowboys who practice rodeo and work in the fields. After a good 'asado', the local barbecue, the railway globetrotter heads for Paysandú, where an old 1929 Ford car has been adapted into a train, a sort of draisine for the employees. Then it's on to the Atlantic coast and its capital, Montevideo, where, for a few days each year, a train runs purely for the pleasure of a group of railway enthusiasts.

Philippe Gougler travels almost 10,000 kilometers from France to Vietnam, a land of legends where it's good to take the train. Philippe travels through the capital Hanoi, where the train winds its way through the narrow streets of the city, right up to the houses. In the north-west of the country, he discovers the land of the Hmong people and its landscapes of terraced rice fields. In the center of the country, Philippe follows in the footsteps of an ancient lost railway. In the Hué region, few people remember this train, built by the French at the time, which ran to the neighbouring country of Laos. During the colonial era, this train was part of a gigantic project to connect the whole of Indochina by rail.

In Laos, a long, brand new railway line has recently been launched in a country that hasn't really seen a train for decades. Philippe Gougler travels by train from north to south, passing through Luang Prabang, famous for its dozens of Buddhist temples. He will be lucky enough to be invited to one of them to spend a day with the monks. Further east, near the Vietnamese border, another, darker facet of the country's history opens up to him. Laos is the country that has been bombed the most in the world. During the Vietnam War, between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped more than 2 million tonnes of bombs. Almost 50 years later, men and women are still clearing land of bombs every day.