Original subtitles

FRANCESCO: It's my third week at sea aboard the Black Swan.

I'm more than 400 miles from my home.

For Venetian sailors passing here hundreds of years ago,

this was the point of no return.

The coast of the Adriatic between here and my hometown

was unquestionably Venetian, safe as houses.

But from here on the territory was disputed.

The dangers were real.

Resistance and animosity,

not just from local inhabitants but pirates, too.

I'm sailing from Venice to Istanbul,

following the trading route of my ancestors.

We have left the Croatian coast behind

and are entering the Bay of Kotor.

We're heading for the tiny island of Madonna dello Scarpello,

''Our Lady of the Rocks. ''

For Venetian sailors, this was a vital pilgrimage

to pray for safe passage through these trouble waters.

It's a tradition over 500 years old.

Inside the chapel,

the walls are covered with thousands of small silver plates.

Each plate has been left by sailors

after a near catastrophe at sea

to thank the Virgin for saving their lives.

The seas here might seem calm enough today

but with strong currents and rocks, they're treacherous.

Diver Spike Bogdan is taking me to see

a powerful reminder of this danger.

Okay, this is the place.

-Where the buoy is signalling. -Ah.

What I'm looking for lies deep beneath the waves.

-Yeah, yeah. We all ready? -FRANCESCO: I'm ready.

This was an Austrian steamship called the Tihany.

In February 1917, she sank in a terrible storm

less than a mile off the coast.

Most of the timbers have rotted away

and through the holes you can see relics of life on board,

including this, a toilet.

The Tihany was built around the same time as the Black Swan.

Some of the features are exactly the same.

Wow! Fantastico!

It's another world.

I'm just a stone's throw from mainland Montenegro.

Even the name owes its existence to my seafaring ancestors.

When Venetian sailors passed this way,

they saw those mountains over there

with their dark forested slopes

and called it the Black Mountain, Montenegro.

MAN: Okay!

After the end of Venetian rule,

Montenegro was swallowed up by its neighbours.

Only in 2006 did it become independent from Serbia.

And now, I'm going to meet its First Lady.

-Nice to meet you. Francesco. -Oh, nice to meet you. Ivana.

-How was your trip? -Good.

-Yeah? -Yeah.

But you're so beautiful that I feel a little embarrassed.

My name is Ivana Knezevic and I'm Miss Montenegro.

Within a few months of Montenegro announcing its independence,

17-year-old Ivana Knezevic competed in the Miss World beauty contest.

ANNOUNCER: Montenegro.

FRANCESCO: The first person to officially represent the new country.

-What would you like to drink? -I'd like some juice.

That's a juice and a beer.

They called me and said, ''You'll be representing your country by yourself,

''so prepare yourself and you'll go to the Miss World Competition, 2006.''

So I was very excited

because it's a great opportunity

to show the world my country and my culture

and my language and the beauty of Montenegro.

There is another girl

-that I think is the Miss Serbia. -Serbia, yes.

And how is the relationship between you and her?

We are like sisters, no rival, no nothing.

And which are your dreams for the future?

My dreams is to finish the university at first

and to be a professor or something like that.

Wow!

In the university or in some school. And I'm learning Italian language.

Oh, wow!

I have a little thing to leave to you.

This is some little biscuits.

You won't become fat, they're very little.

Okay, thank you.

Just a few centuries ago, the waters we are entering now

were the most dangerous in the Mediterranean.

You've heard the pirates of the Caribbean.

Well, they were nothing compared to the pirates of the Mediterranean.

Those guys were tough.

There was nothing they enjoyed more

than robbing and cutting down us Venetians.

In the 16th century, the pirates became so powerful

that they even had their own headquarters.

The fortress town of Ulcinj.

It still looks forbidding today.

After each raid, the pirates would come back to Ulcinj with their booty.

Sometimes it was gold

but more often it was human prisoners.

This was a slave market,

where prisoners captured from Venetian boats

and other galleys where kept and then sold.

There were 100 slave houses in Ulcinj.

It was big business.

Many of the people sold here were innocent Venetian citizens,

not just men, but women and children, too.

Ulcinj may be safe today but sailors will tell you

the days of piracy are not over yet.

From Montenegro on to Albania.

Even though the years of communist tyranny in Albania are over,

this part of our journey has a bad feeling.

Albania was ruled from 1944 by a cruel dictator, Enver Hoxha.

His was the last communist country to fall in Europe

and it is still recovering.

Our first sight of the Port of Durres is hardly welcoming.

After almost three weeks at sea, we need to refuel.

So I have arranged a little road trip inland.

Bledi?

(SPEAKING ITALIAN)

Local guide Bledi Lasco is going to show me around.

I think that things are changed now.

And changed a lot. The people are happy with this life.

Not like before, like communism time, let's say, you know?

Was life difficult?

Yeah, the people couldn't say nothing,

couldn't speak, couldn't say a word against the government

because they were holding the prisoners, political prisoners.

All the people was isolated from Europe, from the other countries.

I know the people that for one word,

they go for 10 years in prison.

-What he have done? -Yes.

He was on the seaside, he said,

''On the other side is Italia, nice place, nice beautiful place.''

And he only for this he make 10 years prisoner.

-Oh, my God. -Yes.

Along the roadside,

the landscape is dotted with small concrete domes.

They're little bunkers,

just big enough for one man and a rifle.

Here we are.

They were built by dictator Hoxha during the 1970s.

They are for to protect from the enemies

during the communism time,

because we are very isolated in the other countries

and he thinks that we are a lot of enemies.

And he took this bunker here.

He was a little paranoid, Hoxha, I think.

And why they're still here?

The bunker is here because it's very heavy.

It is very difficult to move it.

-It'll stay forever here. -Yes, forever it remains here.

Remains of the communism time.

Forever fearful of foreign invasion,

Hoxha built 600,000 of these concrete bunkers

to protect his island of communism.

Hoxha's capital was Tirana,

a showcase for Albanian communism.

He built many monuments celebrating his rule.

For a long time foreigners weren't welcome in Albania.

But if you were unfortunate enough to come here on business,

you were sure to end up at the Dajti,

the state-run hotel for visitors.

Here I can imagine spies, diplomats and double agents

in their play of espionage and counter-espionage.

It's no silly fantasy.

This hotel apparently really does have spaces between the floors,

so the secret police could listen in on foreign guests like me.

The hotel has been empty for some time

and retains its original cold war decor.

It's so spooky, I can't wait to get out.

Tirana is yet to recover from Hoxha's disastrous rule.

Buildings are rotting, poverty is everywhere.

But one man has taken on the challenge.

(SPEAKING ALBANIAN)

(RAPPING IN ALBANIAN)

The mayor of Tirana is Edi Rama.

He is also an artist and sometime rapper.

Despite having few resources, he has managed to open new parks,

clean the river and most unusually,

paint the buildings in bright colours.

We had to do something, I had to make a sign.

The people expectation was very high.

The budget was nothing point something.

So, paint was

a political action.

Not with words,

not with decrees,

but with colours.

EDI: Colours were supposed to wake people up,

to break the grey curtain of doubt,

of hopelessness, of desperation,

with the ambition of change.

FRANCESCO: And what made you to become a politician?

You are an artist.

EDI: The need to change things in a moment of the history

of my country, of my city.

And I hope I'll leave it without having become a politician.

FRANCESCO: I can't say Tirana is a city I'd like to live in.

But its new look proclaims the end of the communist era.

It's amazing what a bit of decoration can do.

# I'm Popeye the sailor man #

We're continuing south.

Soon we'll be entering Greek waters.