From the tiny, breakaway state of Transdniester to the rolling hills of sunny Moldova, across the Carpathians mountains of Northern Romania and through Transylvania to the Danube, this is a journey into some of the poorest and most beautiful parts of south-eastern Europe.

Moved by Tatiana's theatre group, who warn teenagers of the dangers of people trafficking, to lunch with Olga and her mum in the sunny south of Moldova, Michael then passes the Byzantine painted churches of Bucovina, eats pork fat and brandy with lumberjacks in the forests of Maramures, and delights in the Merry Cemetery of Sapanta where the painted tombs are witty celebrations of life.

In Saxon Sighisoara and the imposing Bran Castle, made famous by Bram Stoker's Dracula, the truth behind the Transylvanian hero is unravelled.

In Bucharest he sees for himself Ceausescu's legacy in the People's Palace, but discovers a people who have survived the communist rule and are embracing the freedoms within a united Europe.

Tennis ace Ilie Nastase gives him a very personal view of that period, before National Theatre actor Dan Badarau takes him up the Danube through the famous Iron Gates towards the very heart of Europe.

A journey through the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, from Tallinn in the north via Riga to Vilnius in the south. Michael Palin tells the story of how the three tiny nations shook themselves free of their neighbour and oppressor, the Soviet Union, reshaping their lives and reclaiming their cultures, which had been forced underground but didn't die.

Michael attends a session of hirudotherapy (leech treatment), a session of fire-walking and a frolic with revellers at the pagan festival of Jaani, crowned in a chaplet of oak-leaves. In an impromptu experiment on the streets of Vilnius, he learns why Lithuanians are known as the 'singing nation'.

The documentary ends in Kaliningrad, which was once East Prussia. Kaliningrad is a relic of World War II and one of Europe's oddities - a region of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. It is City Day, a celebration of the 60 years since the region was renamed, and whatever the politics, Michael is determined to enjoy himself before sailing around the Baltic coast to Poland.