
Michael Portillo is nearing the end of his thousand-mile rail journey from Reno, Nevada, to San Diego in southern California. In this final leg, clad in khaki boiler suit and sporting dark glasses, he joins the US Navy Pacific Fleet, birthplace of the elite flying academy Top Gun. Aboard the Pacific Surfliner, he arrives first in the coastal town of La Jolla, where he takes to the water in a kayak to explore the extraordinary 75-million-year-old caves.\n\nIn San Diego, he picks up the trail of the industrialist and property speculator John D Spreckels, who made the city boom in the 19th century and built a pavilion to house the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world. Michael is offered the chance to play it. Appleton's recommends a trip to a huge structure, completed in 1888, on which San Diegans have depended for water for 130 years - the\nSweetwater Dam.
Source: BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 9. Chicago To Champaign, Illinois
16-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 5. Santa Fe, New Mexico, To The Grand Canyon
09-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 4. La Junta To Colorado Springs
05-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 2. Sedalia To St Joseph, Missouri
04-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 1. St Louis To Jefferson City, Missouri
02-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 3 Reversions: 7. Plymouth To New London
Guided by his Appleton's and tracing the footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers, Michael Portillo heads for Plymouth, the 'home town' of America. He learns how indigenous tribes of Wa ...
13-06-2018
BBC 2
Series 3: 2. Boston To Concord, Massachusetts
Michael Portillo's 19th-century Appleton's guidebook leads him to the Parker House Hotel, where in his best pinny, he whisks up a Boston cream pie.\n\nIn the fine dome atop Mass ...
08-11-2022
BBC 2
Series 4: 4. Vancouver Island To Kamloops
Michael Portillo explores British Columbia, steered by his Appleton’s Guide to Canada, published in 1899. He discovers how two superpowers nearly came to war over a pig an ...
22-09-2022
BBC 2
Series 2 Reversions: 9. Chicago To Champaign, Illinois
16-09-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 6. Burlington To Plattsburgh
Michael Portillo continues his American rail journey through New England as he heads for the Canadian border. First stop is Burlington, Vermont, a busy timber port at the time o ...
15-11-2022
BBC 2
Series 3: 20. La Jolla To San Diego
Michael Portillo is nearing the end of his thousand-mile rail journey from Reno, Nevada, to San Diego in southern California. In this final leg, clad in khaki boiler suit and sp ...
08-12-2022
BBC 2
Series 3: 1. Boston
Armed with his 19th-century Appleton's guidebook to the United States and Canada, Michael Portillo embarks on a 1,100-mile railroad journey from Boston, Massachusetts, across th ...
07-11-2022
BBC 2