All language subtitles for Great.Continental.Railway.Journeys.S07E01.480p.x264-mSD[eztv.io]

I'm crossing Europe with
a strikingly modern edition

of Bradshaw's Continental Handbook,
dated 1936.

Empires have been swept away
by revolution

and a dozen new nations have
embarked optimistically
on independence.

Technology has leapt forward.

Aeroplanes and motor cars
connect with trains

in a transport network
which spans the globe.

Jazz and cinema entertain the
industrial masses who work, live

and play under the bright lights
of the great metropolises.

But across the continent,
fascists and communists battle
to govern Europeans,

whose fragile peace
will once again be shattered by war.

According to my Bradshaw's
Continental Handbook 1936,

"This ancient kingdom of Spain well
deserves to be visited by tourist

"and businessman on account
of its exceptional climate,

"its glorious and
historical monuments

"and its vast natural resources."

And as a holder of a Spanish
passport, I say, "Hear, hear."

But in the very year
of my guidebook,

the political weather changed
from tempestuous to violent.

And international visitors
were arriving as volunteer soldiers

and war correspondents.

Intellectuals like George Orwell

and adventurers like
Ernest Hemingway.

My route through this turbulent time
will begin in Old Castile

at the heart of Spain

in the historic university city
of Salamanca.

I'll travel east to Avila...

..then explore the Spanish capital,
Madrid.

Next, I'll head north-east
to Zaragoza.

I'll visit Huesca

and finish high in the Pyrenees
on the French border at Canfranc.

On my journey,
I'll come face-to-face

with Picasso's harrowing
masterpiece...

In my opinion, I think
it's the most important
painting of the 20th century.

..visit the lost
station of the Pyrenees...

Everything stops, there are no more
trains, and we are closed
to the rest of Europe.

..put my best foot forward
in Aragon...

..and uncover my family's
secret political files.

This is going to tell me
a great deal about my father

I didn't know before.

Thank you very much.

"Following the victory
of the Republican Party

"at the elections of April 1931,

"King Alfonso the 13th quit Spain,"
says my guidebook.

"All royal property was confiscated
and amongst the first decrees

"was the separation
of church and state.

"Public buildings intended
for religious observance

"now belong to the nation."

My father was a young,
idealist, left-wing don

at the University of Salamanca,
which will be my first stop.

And he welcomed
these volcanic changes.

But monarchists, landowners
and the church were incensed.

And by mid-1936,
my guide book was out of date.

Army generals like Francisco Franco
had attempted a military coup d'etat

and a brutal civil war had begun.

I'm beginning my journey in the city
where more than 80 years ago,

my father was blissfully happy...

..alas, only briefly,

and in love with its magnificent
historic centre.

Salamanca is La Dorada,
The Golden City,

named for its glowing sandstone.

And my heart sings every time
I set foot there.

Salamanca really has a rare beauty.

Two medieval cathedrals
perched on a hill,

reflected in the river,
with a Roman bridge.

And the stone has been worked
into beautiful works of art.

The two cathedrals
have fused together,

despite the contrast between
austere 12th-century Romanesque

and the grand Gothic of the 16th.

ORGAN PLAYS

And opposite is the
city's university,

where my father became an
assistant professor of law in 1934.

Founded in 1218, it's the oldest
seat of higher learning in Spain.

The University of Salamanca
is older than my own Cambridge.

Amongst these hallowed cloisters,

great minds have wrestled
for 800 years

with the mysteries of the universe.

And that has sometimes brought them
into friction with the authorities.

In 1572, the theologian
Fray Luis de Leon

was seized from his lecture hall
by the Spanish Inquisition.

And after four and a half years
of imprisonment and torment,

he returned to his classroom
and coolly resumed with the words,

"As I was saying..."

In the turbulent days when my father
taught in the university,

academia's claim to freedom
of speech again brought conflict.

This time with the generals who
had recently staged the coup d'etat

and established their
national headquarters here

amongst the temples
of the intellect.

In the year that my guide book
was published,

with Franco's forces
in control of the city,

the university's rector
took a surprising stand.

Severiano, hello.

The university's historian
is Severiano Delgado.

The rector of the university
at the time, Miguel de Unamuno,

tell me about him.

When there is a military uprising,
what is Unamuno's reaction to that?

Why did Miguel de Unamuno
support Franco's coup?

And there had been strikes and
there had been many killings,

so he might think that a restoration
of order was a good thing.

Rather than restoring
calm and order,

Franco's men began to murder large
numbers of alleged opponents.

Seeing that brutality,

Unamuno regretted his support
for the regime.

Here in the city where
the nationalists were headquartered,

in a grand chamber filled
with Franco's officers,

he denounced the regime
in a speech remembered to this day.

Tell me what happened here
in October 1936.

Yes. This is published in this
British literary magazine.

My father gives a very dramatic
account of events.

He wasn't here, but he says,

"You will win," talking to Millan
Astray, "but you will not convince."

"You will win because you possess
more than enough brute force.

"But you will not convince because
to convince means to persuade.

"And in order to persuade,

"you would need what you lack -
reason and right in the struggle.

"I consider it futile to have
besought you to think of Spain.

"I have finished."

Now, what do you think
of that account?

As an historian, what do you think?

What do you know happened?

He's written here
some notes in pencil.

So it seems to you that he did
actually use these words -

"To win is not to convince."

Yes. Yes, of course.

What was the reaction
in the auditorium?

How did this turbulent event end?

Just a little more than two months
after this event? Yes.

The repression against which Unamuno
had protested grew and spread.

As Franco's forces advanced
across the country,

they seized personal documents
of those they called foes of Spain,

accumulating the evidence
here in Salamanca.

Yes. All of this? Yes.
Thousands and thousands.

Severiano, like you. Yes.

And what does this say? That he's...
that he's a member of a trade union?

Is that what that means? Yes.

And what happened
to your grandfather?

A sort of slave labour.
Slave labour, yes.

On this card.

Here. P, P, P...

Portillo, Lopez. Portillo, Lopez.

Portillo, Luis.

Here.

Two cards. Two cards.

This one tells me
that he was a lieutenant

and this is to do
with his legal work, isn't it?

But these give us
very little detail about him.

There are more documents?

I recognise my father's signature.

These are documents
I've never seen before.

What... What are they?

Who is applying for a job?

He's setting out really his, erm,
his curriculum vitae, his CV.

Good heavens. That is amazingly
interesting. And here...

You'd recognise the resemblance,
would you? Yes.

So this is the Alliance
of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals
In Defence Of Culture.

Yes. Madrid, 1936.

So this would be sufficient

to make my father an enemy
of the Franco regime?

Absolutely amazing.

No, I did not.

I knew about the cards,
but I didn't know there were
all these other documents here.

This is going to tell me
a great deal about my father

I didn't know before.

Thank you very much.

Today, students at the university
that my father loved

are still very conscious of the
stand taken by Miguel de Unamuno.

Unamuno, he fought for his ideas.

He just stood up for himself.

And I feel like that's...

That's an incredible thing to do.

And even though he knew the
consequences were going
to be so strong,

he still did what
he thought was right.

Let me share with you,
my father, Luis Portillo,
was on the Republican side.

He had five brothers
on Franco's side.

Does any of you have that
experience in your family?

Any divisions in your families
during the civil war?

Not division, but episodes that are
related to the civil war, yes.

My grandmother was a seven-year-old
child when the civil war broke out

and she remembers the sound
of the gunfire

when Republicans were executed
in the walls of the cemetery.

Do you talk about these things
in your family

or do you prefer not to talk?

We do. We do talk
about these things.

I think nowadays we can have a
more academic approach to the war.

We can study it
as an historical event.

But if we talk with people
who lived it,

it's a more personal experience
and I think it's more difficult.

"The Plaza Mayor", says Bradshaw's,

"is one of the finest
squares in Spain."

To which I say, bah,
it is THE finest.

What other square is as beautiful
or well-proportioned as this?

And imagine in the 1930s,
in the corner cafes here,

the artists and writers
and poets meeting.

And now it is a place for families.

And every person in Salamanca
takes a daily walk here,

so that unlike many other places,
here, all the generations are mixed.

Old and young coming together.

From the plaza, I'm heading
to the city's market,

excited to sample one of Spain's
most famous delicacies,

said to have its origins
here in Salamanca.

Hola, que tal? Hello, how are you?

Me pondria una pequena
racion de jamon?

Racion de jamon? Perfecto.
Algo de beber?

Una cana, por favor. Una canita.

Here is the ham.
Oh, that's delicious.

And here's la cana.
Thank you very much.

That's absolutely superb.
It's fantastic.

So sweet, so moist.

It's wonderful.

Why is it that Salamanca ham
is so good?

It's so good because of the weather,

the typical weather
between the mountains.

That is the perfect weather
to make the ham.

Slicing wafer-thin slivers of ham
is an art I've often admired.

Gracias.

And I'm keen to try.

So, now, what are your suggestions?

You have to put the straight knife.
Straight.

And slowly start cutting it.

Oh, no, no, no, no.
That hasn't worked at all.

Look at that. That's pathetic.
Right, let's try it again.

I'd better improve soon, as a leg
of ham is eye-wateringly expensive.

What do you think of that?
That's quite good.

Would you be willing to eat
a slice that I have cut?

Yes, no problem. No problem.
Off you go.

It's fantastic, isn't it?
Very nice. Fantastic.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

I'm leaving Salamanca
on an intercity train

heading east on Spain's
state-owned railway network, Renfe.

In the decade before my guidebook
was published,

Spain had begun to open up
as a tourist destination.

The country had been neutral
during the First World War

and had escaped its devastation,
remaining unspoilt and exotic.

My next stop is the remarkable
citadel of Avila.

Built between the 11th
and the 14th centuries,

it's one of northern Spain's
most magnificent monuments

and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

These city walls,
highlighted in my Bradshaw's,

are the best preserved in Spain.

Two and a half kilometres long
with 87 semi-circular towers.

They're now a picture postcard,
but they were built, of course,

to protect a population
terrified of attack.

With the change in the technology of
war and greater political stability,

people at last dared
to live outside the walls.

And luckily for us, once redundant,
they were not demolished,

as in so many other places.

Avila is the birthplace
of St Teresa,

a much-loved Spanish mystic,

and has drawn pilgrims
and visitors for centuries.

Today, tourism is hugely important.

In Avila, I'm staying
in a parador.

It's a sort of hotel that is often
located in a heritage building.

And this one looks suitably
ancient, historic and austere.

For my Spanish breakfast,
savoury - bread with tomato,

and sweet - little fingers of
deep-fried batter called churros,

which I will dip into chocolate.

An advertisement
in my 1936 Bradshaw's guide.

"Life is pleasant in Spain
under its continuous sunshine.

"The country where each visitor
is welcomed as a friend.

"An essentially varying country

"where the contrasts
and peculiarities banish monotony

"and can at all times please
the most opposed tastes."

The smartest thing
that Spain ever did

was to keep out
of the First World War,

enabling it to trade
with all the belligerent powers.

And during the 1920s
the economy grew,

although hampered by
the country's isolation

and lack of industrialisation.

Maybe tourism could help.

And this rather literal and comic
translation into English

could only add to the allure
of this unknown country.

Spain has boomed
as a tourist destination

and today it's the second most
visited country in the world,

welcoming 82 million
visitors a year.

The Spanish state owns around
100 paradors across the country

and Oscar Lopez Agueda
is head of the enterprise.

Oscar. Hi, Michael.
What a pleasure.

So when did this idea of paradors,

particularly using
heritage buildings, begin?

Actually, it was at the
beginning of the 20th century.

It was 1910 with the king,
Alfonso the 13th.

He tried to open Spain
to bring some tourism,

to use all our heritage -
castles and monasteries
and things like that,

to do some hotels
for quality tourism.

Is this really the first time
that Spain directs itself
to attracting tourists?

Well, actually yes, because,
you know, the 19th century,

it was a hard century in Spain.

It was at the end of the old empire,
the Spanish empire,

and it was a poor country.

So we tried to open Spain to make
it known to bring people to Spain.

I mean, the parador represents
a more sophisticated tourism
than the beach holiday.

Yes, of course. It's a
different way of tourism, yeah.

After my overnight stop in Avila,

I'm continuing my journey east
towards the capital.

I'm now heading for Madrid,
which the guidebook tells me,

"is a fine, attractive city.

"The capital of the kingdom
of Spain since 1560

"during the country's
so-called golden age.

"In recent years, Madrid has been
undergoing a transformation.

"The Cortes, or parliament,
voted a subsidy

"of eight million pesetas a year
for ten years for this purpose."

Spain had over the centuries
descended

from being a gold-rich
imperial power

to a developing country
with enormous inequality

and an agricultural system
that was quasi-feudal.

At least Madrid could be made
to resemble a modern capital.

Madrid lies almost exactly in the
geographic centre of the country.

And whilst it's not as old
as Spain's most historic cities,

since becoming the capital
in the 16th century

it's acquired real elegance
and beauty.

The Parque de El Retiro,
the pleasant retreat,

lies right in the heart
of Madrid and is vast.

It was planned back in the 1550s

and once contained a royal palace
and a theatre.

And I think even today,
in the elegant walkways

and the hundreds of statues and the
fountains and the crystal palace,

you can tell that
its origins were regal.

Once an exclusive park
for the Spanish monarchy,

since the late 19th century

it's been a sanctuary
for ordinary Madrilenos

to escape the hectic city
and unwind.

I think I'll leave it to them.

At the beginning
of the 20th century,

Madrid was developing
into a modern metropolis.

The first metro line
opened in 1919

to serve the city's
rapidly expanding population.

And above ground, a new city plan
was transforming the capital.

Perhaps the most striking feature
of the modernization of Madrid

was this, the Gran Via,
a gash of modernity

driven through the ancient heart
of the city.

A boulevard of cinemas and hotels,

an avenue to compare with Berlin
or Paris or New York.

At a stretch.

Modelled on the grand
American towers of the period,

the Telefonica building,
completed in 1929,

was like nothing ever seen before
in Spain

and was one of the first
skyscrapers in Europe.

It was Madrid's telephone exchange

and the headquarters
of the state-owned phone company.

At the time of my guidebook,
it took on another role.

Reyes. Hi, Michael.
Welcome to the Telefonica building.

Very beautiful it is.
Thank you so much.

Would you like to go up?
Yes, please. Let's go.

Reyes Esparza, archivist for
the Telefonica Foundation,

is taking me to the top
of this iconic building.

Good heavens.
Reyes, that is a magnificent view.

Amazing.

I mean, not just the city,
but I can see there the Plaza Mayor,

obviously, at the heart
of the old city.

I can see the royal palace
over there. The opera.

What did the Republic use the
building for during the civil war?

For many people outside Spain,
their view of the Spanish Civil War

is through the eyes of Ernest
Hemingway and of course,
George Orwell. Of course.

This building must have been quite a
target during the civil war. It was.

So was it badly damaged?

How do you think Madrid survives?

For two years, the world was
appalled by repeated attacks

on Madrid from Franco's forces,
terrorising the population.

But it was the bombing
of a small town in 1937

that provoked unprecedented
international outrage

and inspired one of
the 20th century's

most shocking works of art.

Picture in your mind's eye,
if you would,

the artist Pablo Picasso.

I bet you see him wearing
a blue striped T-shirt
like a French sailor.

And he lived most of his life
in France.

But he was actually
thoroughly Spanish.

And the reason that he wouldn't
even visit Spain after 1936

was that he disapproved
of the regime of General Franco.

And indeed, he stipulated

that his greatest painting,
Guernica, or Gernika,

should not come to Spain
for as long as the dictator lived.

But those were other times, and
today this masterwork is in Madrid.

I'm visiting the Museo Reina Sofia,

Spain's national museum
of 20th century art.

After many years in its own exile,
Picasso's painting Guernica

is now displayed here
in a gallery of its own.

I'm meeting Rosario Peiro,
the head of collections.

Rosario. Hello.

Hello.

Very nice to meet you. I'm Michael.

People all over the world will have
seen photographs of this painting,

but you have to come and see it
in person, don't you,

because it's so huge,
so overwhelming

and actually so upsetting,
don't you think?

It is, actually,
it's very upsetting.

I've seen people, especially kids
are very afraid of it sometimes.

First of all, tell me about the
event that caused the painting.

On the 26th of April
there was a small town

in the Basque country
called Guernica.

It was a Monday
and had its market day.

And at about four when everybody was
kind of shopping and selling stuff,

it was completely bombed,

to the point that half of the town
was completely destroyed.

And of course,
a lot of civilians died.

NEWS REPORT: Scene of the most
terrible air raid our modern
history yet can boast.

This mass aerial attack
was carried out

by Franco's fascist and Nazi allies
on the defenceless Basque city.

In Spain, for the first time
in Europe,

civilians were targeted in war.

The news shocked the world.

None was more angered
than Pablo Picasso,

who had recently been commissioned
to create an artwork

for the Spanish Pavilion
at the 1937 World Fair in Paris.

How long did it take him
to paint it?

More or less a month.
A month and a week. Yes.

So from April,
when the bombing occurs,

to June, when the painting
is on display?

Yeah. A very short period of time.
Extraordinary.

What do you think of the elements
of the painting?

The fire, the lantern,
the light bulb, the bull, the horse?

What should we make of these?
Well, it's a painting about war.

It's a painting about death
and suffering.

And here the woman
is carrying all of this.

Women burning, women running away,

women crying because
their baby's dead.

The only male figure here is dead

and actually it has, in a way,
become a kind of statue.

And of course, the bull.

The bull looks at the spectator
clearly and directly, saying,
what do you think about that?

It's like it's asking you
to kind of take a position

and I think this
is the most important part,

or let's say the most political part
of the painting.

You know, this kind of facing
to the public and saying,
look at me, look at this.

What is the place of this painting
in the history of art?

Well, in my opinion,

I think is the most important
painting of the 20th century.

It always speaks to the people.

It has a very specific story.

And the story with the painting

goes together with the story
of the 20th century.

For me personally,

this painting depicts the event
without which I would not exist.

And this is because
the bombing of Guernica

persuaded the British government
to admit some refugees,

some children, from the Basque
region of northern Spain.

They came. Some of them went
to Oxford, where my mother
was an undergraduate.

She started to look after them.

When my father came as a refugee
from the civil war,
he went to Oxford,

met the refugee children,
and through them met my mother.

Without Guernica,
they would never have met.

That's very nice.

This wonderful winter garden
used to be the train shed

of the old Atocha station
in the days of steam and diesel.

It now serves merely as the
entrance hall to the new terminal

from which the high-speed
trains depart.

With about 3,000 kilometres
of track,

Spain has the largest network
of high-speed trains in Europe.

For me, that means that my 270km
journey across the plains

will take just one hour
and 20 minutes.

Thank you. Muchas gracias.

I'm on my way to Zaragoza,
which my Bradshaw's tells me

was formerly the capital
of the kingdom of Aragon.

And when Ferdinand of Aragon
married Queen Isabella of Castile,

Spain was created in 1469.

In the Anglicised version
of the name, Saragossa,

it's perhaps clearer that it was
the city of Caesar Augustus,

the Roman Emperor.

So its history goes back
at least until then.

Although it's the fifth largest
city in Spain,

it's much neglected
by foreign tourists,

even though it's very
well-connected.

It's at the midpoint
of the high-speed line

between Madrid and Barcelona.

And at the moment,

my train is travelling
at 300km per hour.

I'm beyond the halfway point
of my journey.

After a stop in Zaragoza
I'll head up to the city of Huesca,

before ending by the border
with France.

Situated on the River Ebro,

Zaragoza is one of Spain's
most beautiful historic cities,

thanks to its Roman, Christian
and Islamic past.

And inside the city's
17th-century cathedral,

Nuestra Senora del Pilar,
is a hidden gem.

The work of one of Spain's
most famous painters,

whose frescoes can be viewed
for nothing.

Or be illuminated for a fee.

Let there be light.

The great Spanish painter
Francisco Goya

was born near to Zaragoza
in 1746,

and I imagine he must
have been thrilled

to be asked to decorate parts of
the new cathedral at the age of 25.

He went on to experience the brutal
Napoleonic invasion of Spain

and produced a series of works
on the catastrophes of war,

which are said to have been
in Picasso's mind

when he painted Guernica.

Zaragoza is the capital of Aragon,

a region with a rich
cultural heritage.

And it's not unusual
to stumble across La Jota,

its energetic and unique folk dance.

TRADITIONAL SPANISH MUSIC

Stupendo. Gracias, gracias.

Natalia, that was
absolutely wonderful.

Thank you. La Jota is such
an elegant dance, isn't it?

What is its origin?

It's a bit hard to pinpoint, but
many experts say that it was born

maybe in Persia, maybe some time
around the ninth century,

and all those influences
came all the way here to Aragon.

So many stringed instruments.
I recognize the guitar. Yes.

What are the others?
These ones are called bandurrias.

There's no name in English.
These are lutes.

Are you Aragonese? Yes, I am.

And proud of La Jota?
Yes, of course.

I would say most Aragonese people
are proud because it's our heritage.

Uno, dos, tres, punto, arriba.

Uno, dos, tres...

TRADITIONAL SPANISH MUSIC

Uno, dos, tres, punto, arriba.

Uno, dos, tres, punto, arriba.

Perdon, el panico!

One, two, three.

APPLAUSE

It's a new morning
and today I'll be exploring

the modern face of Zaragoza by tram.

One thing that some people
don't like about trams

is the overhead wires, catenary
in the terms of the trade.

But here in the centre of Zaragoza
there are no overhead wires.

And the answer to the mystery
is this metal recharging plate.

When the tram arrives
in the station, a shoe descends,

it is recharged and boom -
off it goes.

The tram system has been running
only since 2013,

but transports 100,000 passengers
a day in a city of only 700,000.

It's a huge local success,
not least because the trams

are made in Zaragoza
at the CAF factory.

Fernando. Michael, welcome to CAF.
Thank you so much.

Let's start in the workshops.
Super. Thank you.

Fernando Anoro is the general
manager of the Zaragoza plant,

which has five huge workshops
building trains and trams.

What was the origin of the company
here in Zaragoza?

Well, we can say that our
adventure begins in 1895

with two people, two guys.

They thought that maybe
to build rolling stock

will be a good business.

What sort of products,
in the early days?

They began with trams,
mechanic trams,

or electric trams.

I'm using a guidebook from 1936

and Zaragoza found itself
absolutely at the front line. Yeah.

So I suppose Zaragoza
and the factory got drawn

into the civil war.

The factory was dedicated to war
purpose, especially to refurbish

many different type of vehicles
with military purposes.

But then, after the war,
there must have been an urgent

need for reconstruction.

Yeah, the rolling stock
in Spain was absolutely

practically destroyed,

and during the '40s it was necessary
to renew this rolling stock.

And which countries are
you supplying to now?

Main market is the Spanish market,

but now the British market is
very, very important for us.

In this moment, I can say that
one third of our order book

is for the British market.

CAF has supplied trains and trams
to countries all over the world,

from Europe to Mexico,
Brazil and Australia.

On the production line today
are trains destined

for the north of England.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Welcome to the future
of Northern Rail.

Travel, relax, enjoy.

Ah, well, Fernando,
very, very smart.

The finished product.

It's not often that you get
on a train in Zaragoza

and see the destination board,
Barrow-in-Furness. Well...

I very much like these open trains.

I think they make people
feel much more secure.

They can see all the way
down the train.

It gives more space.

Could we have a look at the cab,
please? Of course. Thank you.

Hello, Ruben. Hello, Michael.

Very good to see you. May I sit
in the driver's seat, please?

Yeah, of course. This is very smart.

Wonderful.

Now,

if we were going to drive a train,
what would we do?

Ah... we need to send
a direction.

Push the DSD button.

I'm going to go... Forward?
Forwards.

Yeah.

LOUD BEEPING

And close the doors.

Close the doors.

FAST BEEPING

Don't forget the horn.

HORN SOUNDS THREE TIMES

So I'm going to ease
power back... Yeah.

..and the train moves.

Yeah. Ole!

The train is absolutely lovely,

it's got a beautiful,
smooth movement to it.

I don't want to go through the doors
at the end of the workshop,

so I'm going to stop it...

..there.

Fantastic. Very good.

Thank you very much. What fun.

I'm leaving this city from a station
with a rather familiar name.

I'm travelling from Zaragoza
to Huesca, cities which,

in the year of my guidebook,
were held by Franco's forces.

This region was the front line
between the Nationalists

and the Republicans
in the Civil War,

and my train route runs close
to those battle lines.

The Spanish Civil War was a struggle
between political ideologies

like communism, fascism
and democracy,

as the Second World War
would be immediately after.

It's hard to understand now
how the causes in Spain

attracted idealists from abroad,
prepared to die,

men volunteering as soldiers

and women as nurses.

The trenches near Huesca
were manned by militant socialists

and anarchist militias
fighting for the republic.

Amongst them, many foreigners,
including Englishman Eric Blair,

known to literature
as George Orwell.

Best known today for the novels

Animal Farm
and Nineteen Eighty-Four,

George Orwell also wrote
Homage To Catalonia,

a memoir of his time
fighting fascism

with the Marxist POUM party
during the Spanish Civil War.

He saw action in the trenches
outside Huesca,

some of which have been restored,

and I have the great honour of
meeting George Orwell's son,

Richard Blair.

We're coming towards the trench,

which was obviously the trench
of the republic.

Where were the fascist lines?

If we look out over here,
over the town of Huesca itself,

the fascists were within
the township itself

and the surrounding area,

and of course, this is where
the Republicans were,

they were trying to take Huesca.

The generals would say, tomorrow
we would have coffee in Huesca,

tomorrow we will have coffee
in Huesca,

and it never happened
because they never took Huesca.

Tell us what Orwell says about
the conditions that he endured?

Very much like trench warfare
anywhere in the world.

It was pretty disgusting.

If it rained, this would be like
a quagmire, and it was cold.

The one thing he talked
about is the cold.

He just said it got into his bones.

Your father had been
at Eton College... Indeed.

..which is one of the most expensive
and best schools in England.

Why had he teamed up with some
Marxists? When he left school,

he joined the Indian
Imperial Police Force,

was stationed in Burma,

and there he discovered that British
imperialism wasn't really quite

what he thought it was,
he disagreed with it,

and I think this really,
to some extent,

set him on the road to socialism.

As a socialist, Orwell feared
the spread of fascism across Europe.

He became a writer, and travelled
to Spain as a war correspondent,

but once there, felt compelled
to volunteer as a militiaman.

At the front, he quickly
discovered the perils of war.

How did your father
come to be wounded?

He was changing guard at 4:00
or 5:00 in the morning,

and dawn was to his back,
so he was silhouetted,

and of course,
being as tall as he was,

he stood up, without thinking,
and a sniper got him,

shot him through the neck.

Quite extraordinary,
if I may say so,

to survive a shot
through the throat. Yes.

The bullet had entered the left-hand
side of his throat and passed out

through the lower side of his right.

It twanged a vocal cord,

but apart from that,
he was uninjured.

Lucky man.

What did he have to say
about the organisation of his side?

HE LAUGHS

Erm, I think...

I think it was fairly chaotic,

in a word.

They were given very old
Mauser rifles,

the ammunition was poor,

and a lot of the cartridges
just simply didn't work.

One of the things I find very moving
about it is

he describes all this chaos, and
he's very critical of lots of things

that happen on the Republican side,

but he lives a moment of socialism,
which touches him very much.

Yes, that's in Barcelona.

At the beginning,
when he first arrives,

everybody is equal,
everyone calls each other comrade,

and it doesn't matter whether
you're a street cleaner

or whether you're a CEO
of a large company,

you're all the same,
and he likes that.

This, of course, was disillusioned
when he went back a few months later

during the, what they call
the May riots, in Barcelona,

where everything was descending
into chaos.

Bitter divisions split the left
into rival factions

who fought each other.

Orwell's disillusionment grew
and when his militia was outlawed

by the Soviet-backed communists,
he fled Spain in fear of his life.

He goes on to write Nineteen
Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.

To what extent do you think
his experiences

of viewing communism here, amongst
other things, led to those books?

There is no question
that his experience in Spain

was the genesis
of what he wrote later.

And, in fact, he says so, that,

"What I experienced in Spain,
the totalitarianism,

"which I came to hate, is all part
and parcel of what I write."

And that comes out in both
Animal Farm and, of course,

more importantly,
in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Richard, I've had a few special
moments in my life,

and this is one, sharing a trench,

just outside Huesca,
with the son of George Orwell.

Thank you so much.
Not at all.

From Huesca, I'm approaching
the final leg of my journey,

which would take me up
to the French border,

to a station that is revered.

My Bradshaw's 1936 advertises
a railway route,

from London to Zaragoza,

via Paris, Bordeaux, Pau,
near the Spanish border

and Canfranc in 29 hours.

That bold line was blasted

through the mighty Pyrenees
Mountains in the 1920s,

at a time when Spain was determined
to forge new international links.

I'm riding on those tracks today,

but with no hope whatsoever

of arriving even at Pau,
let alone London.

But the name Canfranc
is whispered today

in awe by one railway nerd
to another, the world over.

It's a glorious journey along
the valley of the River Aragon,

as the line takes me
to the foothills of the Pyrenees.

El nombre de la estacion, Canfranc.

El nombre de la estacion, Canfranc.

You have to imagine that,
for hours,

the train has been passing
through remote places,

a few villages,
many semi-derelict

and then we arrive
at our destination.

A Versailles of a railway station.

A great rusting hulk,

like a Titanic
stranded in the Pyrenees.

I'm meeting engineer
and expert on Canfranc

Rocio Otero. Rocio!

Hello. I'm Michael.
Nice to meet you.

It's a very exciting moment
for me.

For a long time, I've wanted to
visit Canfranc station.

But tell me, why did they build
such a spectacular station?

Well, this station
is like we're advertising

for people that came from Europe
to Spain

and the station wanted to show

how big, modern and fancy we were
at that period.

My 1936 guidebook reminds me,
of course,

that you had to change train
between Spain and France,

because of the different gauges.

So, give me a picture of
what was going on here.

Just imagine a train coming from the
tunnel from France or Europe

and all the people
going through this building,

all the goods going
through the building,

and a lot of movement
between the two platforms.

Everything went through
the building.

Even so, it's a huge building.
What facilities did it have?

It had a big hotel.
It had a post office.

The customs, it has also
a hospital or a clinic.

It had a restaurant, too.

It was a very modern place
compared to the other things

that were in this valley.

When built, this was Europe's second
biggest railway station.

Its inauguration, in July 1928,

was a most lavish affair with the
president of the French Republic

and Alfonso, the 13th King
of Spain,

presiding at the celebrations.

Tell me, then, what happened
to Canfranc station

with the coming
of the Civil War in 1936?

Everything stops.
The interchanges stop, too.

There are no more trains
that connect with Europe

and we are closed to the rest
of Europe.

My father left
Spain through the Pyrenees.

Was Canfranc station used
by Spaniards going into exile?

Not through the station, because it
was closed by that moment.

They went through the passes
on the mountains.

But during the Second World War,

the Jewish came through
the tunnel,

escaping from Europe and then went
to South America.

So, this was a Jewish escape
route from the Holocaust. Mm-hm.

After the Second World War,
the line deteriorated

and when a train derailed on the
French side in 1970,

both the route and Canfranc station
were abandoned.

Rocio, this looks like good news.
They're working on the old station.

What's going on?

They are going to use the building
for a hotel

and they are constructing
a new train station

for a new train, too.

So, we will have again a nice
connection with the rest of Spain

and probably with France,
because they are programming

to rebuild the line
in the French side.

Rocio, that is good news.

Although I feel privileged
to have seen it

when I could still imagine it
as a great railway station.

It's been sad to travel around Spain
with a guidebook from 1936,

the year in which Spain's hopes
for modernising and opening up

were extinguished by the Civil War.

Following the defeat of Franco's
allies, Hitler and Mussolini,

Spain was left isolated
behind the Pyrenees,

a lonely dictatorship in a Europe
of democracies,

in which Picasso, Orwell and my
exiled father could not set foot.

Since the return of free speech
at the end of the 1970s,

Spain has experienced
a transformation

in its infrastructure,
social attitudes

and international reputation.

My feeling is that
its golden age is now.

Next time in France,

I'll learn the details
of a shunned Royal marriage...

Despite hundreds
of invitations sent,

only 16 guests attended
to the wedding.

Sixteen people for the wedding
of the next King,

it's not very many, is it?

..get some va-va-voom
on the racetrack.

I'm holding on for dear life.

Oh, I'm enjoying this!
Oh, yeah!

..and discover how the showgirls of
Paris influenced a fashion legend.

They saw the girls coming
down, you know, from there.

You know, with the face
that was beautiful.