Great Railway Journeys

Clive Anderson visits Mao's birthplace, the Confucian burial grounds of Qufu and Datong's Buddhist caves while traveling across China.

Journalist Rian Malan travels through South Africa before the 1994 election, journeying from Cape Town to the Lost City, with stops in Durban and Johannesburg.

Ballerina Natalia Makarova makes a two-week journey on the Bolshoi Express from St Petersburg to Tashkent, with stops in Moscow and Volgograd (Stalingrad).

Michael Palin travels through Northern Ireland and Ireland and finds out more about his Irish ancestors, experiences the peace train from Belfast to Dublin, and visits Cork.

Poet-novelist Lisa St Aubin de Teran follows the only available long-distance passenger route in Brazil, travelling from Santos west to Bolivia.

BBC correspondent Mark Tully travels on the first train for a decade to go through the Khyber Pass, closed since the end of the Soviet-Afghan war.