It’s Day 14 since beginning in my home of Sydney and today I say adieu to the ‘City of Lights’ and head to fabled Venice and in doing it get to tick off one of my ultimate bucket list dreams, which and overnight journey on the “Spy Express”.
My inaugural journey aboard The Orient Express takes the classic route from Paris to Venice, the gateway to the Orient. This breathtaking journey travels through rural French farmlands, past Italian lakes, and Swiss Alpine valleys.
For most of us the name ‘Orient Express’ conjures up images of romance, intrigue, adventure, and even murder. Some romantics say the modern versions of the Orient Express are a far cry from the original that Cookridge lovingly and nostalgically portrays: “Kings and crooks, millionaires and refugees, big-game hunters and smugglers, prima donnas and courtesans traveled on it; tycoons and financiers clinched their deals across its sumptuous dining tables; diplomats, spies, and revolutionaries on board the train moved secretively to their moments of history.”
But to me if you were to single out just one entity that encapsulated the old ‘romance of travel’ it’s got to be the Orient Express.
“80 DAYS” Series
In ’80 DAYS’, starting from his home base of Sydney adventurer and Award winning film maker Paul G Roberts, retraces the global footsteps of Phileas Fogg, hero of Jules Verne’s most famous work, “Around the World in 80 Days”, and this time around Roberts does a deep dive on history, art and culture of the cities he visits, and he captures and records his global adventures for a new 80 Episode TV series.
Making an Award winning film is no small feat. Roberts has no less than 16 Best picture wins from major international Film festivals. Usually it takes a great story, a team of highly skilled artisans. Writers, producers, a great director, editors, actors and usually a pile of money. And even then it takes a decent amount of luck and a lot of dedication for it to realise the promise it had on paper. There are a million things that can derail the project.
The degree of difficulty is amplified many times over when it has ambitions to become a series. But for one person to attempt to all of this solo, is for most experts just insanity. In this new 80 episode solo Round the World Series, Award winning filmmaker and travel lover Paul G Roberts is the writer, director, producer, star, presenter, camera / sound / lighting / drone cam operator.
EDITED BY RANICAN ZAPANTA.
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