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: 17. Monterey To Santa Barbara
Steered by his late-19th-century Appleton's guidebook, Michael Portillo continues his railroad travels through southern California aboard the Coast Starlight service. In the his ...
05-12-2022
BBC 2
Series 3: 3. Plymouth To Nantucket
Led by his Appleton's guidebook and tracing the footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers, Michael Portillo heads for Plymouth, the home town of America. He learns how indigenous tribes ...
09-11-2022
BBC 2
Series 3 Reversions: 2. San Francisco
Armed with his trusty Appleton's Guide, Michael Portillo reaches San Francisco, where he boards one of the city's iconic cable cars. Behind the scenes in the engineering powerho ...
05-06-2018
BBC 2
Series 4: 3. Skagway To Vancouver
Michael Portillo embarks on a second spectacular rail journey through Alaska into Canada on the White Pass and Yukon railway.\n\nArriving in Skagway by seaplane from railwayless ...
21-09-2022
BBC 2
Series 4: 10. Edmonton To Jasper
Michael Portillo continues west through the Canadian Prairie on his thousand-mile rail journey from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Jasper, Alberta. Following his 1899 Appleton’s g ...
11-10-2022
BBC 2
Series 3 Reversions: 3. Berkeley To Santa Cruz
Following his Appleton's guide, Michael Portillo makes a trip to the jewel in the crown of America's National Parks, Yosemite, to behold its towering granite cliffs, its giant s ...
06-06-2018
BBC 2
Series 3: 18. Los Angeles
Armed with his Appleton's guide to the United States, Michael Portillo arrives in Los Angeles to delight in the 'city of dreams', from its glorious Union Station to its golden b ...
06-12-2022
BBC 2