Pearl Harbor

:00:00. > :00:09.we visit the memorial site, 75 years after the Japanese bombing

:00:10. > :00:15.raid that drew the Americans into World War II.

:00:16. > :00:17.Also coming up, we're in rattlesnake country,

:00:18. > :00:25.on the trail of ancient Native American art.

:00:26. > :00:27.Simon's looking for guaranteed snow for a four-year-old

:00:28. > :01:01.We're starting this week in the Pacific Ocean,

:01:02. > :01:10.in the beautiful volcanic archipelago of Hawaii.

:01:11. > :01:13.Below me, Oahu, the state's third biggest island

:01:14. > :01:17.and home to its capital, Honolulu.

:01:18. > :01:25.American pilots would have practised in one of these before graduating

:01:26. > :01:29.to the fighters and bombers of the Second World War.

:01:30. > :01:34.This one's been restored for tourists.

:01:35. > :01:42.But 75 years ago this December, Japanese pilots approach the US

:01:43. > :01:51.naval base here with very different intentions.

:01:52. > :01:54.At 7:55am on December 7th, the first of two waves of Japanese

:01:55. > :01:59.aircraft began their devastating assault on Pearl Harbor.

:02:00. > :02:02.Within two hours, five battleships had been sunk,

:02:03. > :02:07.and more than 2,400 Americans killed.

:02:08. > :02:15.That attack drew the United States into World War II.

:02:16. > :02:19.These days, the site is still an active naval base,

:02:20. > :02:22.as well as being a museum, a national monument to those killed

:02:23. > :02:33.Ironically, many of those who come are from Japan.

:02:34. > :02:36.I wanted to learn from the history, and my stepfather, it was his dream

:02:37. > :03:19.to come here, to pray, to thank to the world.

:03:20. > :03:24.She is three football fields long, 20 stories tall.

:03:25. > :03:28.The primary visitor to Hawaii, especially when I first came

:03:29. > :03:32.here in the late 1980s, was predominantly Japanese.

:03:33. > :03:34.There were also some Japanese who would not come because they felt

:03:35. > :03:38.ashamed or they felt they would be somehow mistreated.

:03:39. > :03:42.We have worked very hard toward reconciliation.

:03:43. > :03:48.In 1991, I was actively engaged along with others in exercising

:03:49. > :03:55.But it had to come from the veterans as well,

:03:56. > :04:00.The main event for many visitors here is a boat ride out

:04:01. > :04:05.to the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona.

:04:06. > :04:12.The crowd size is kept as small and dignified as possible.

:04:13. > :04:14.The memorial straddles the hull of the Arizona,

:04:15. > :04:28.Around 900 servicemen killed on the attack remain on the ship.

:04:29. > :04:30.On December 7th, as part of the commemoration,

:04:31. > :04:32.two American Pearl Harbor veterans who have recently died

:04:33. > :04:43.There are thought to be around 2,000 survivors still remaining.

:04:44. > :04:49.The youngest military survivor will be 93 now.

:04:50. > :04:52.But, despite their advancing years, some still visit the base,

:04:53. > :05:01.I enjoy coming down here, I meet people from just

:05:02. > :05:10.It was all in the morning, of course.

:05:11. > :05:13.I had a 30 calibre rifle, shooting at the planes.

:05:14. > :05:17.When the first officers came aboard, they took my gun away and told me

:05:18. > :05:20.to go to the warehouse, because I was in supplies.

:05:21. > :05:23.At that time I felt real naked, like I didn't have anything

:05:24. > :05:29.It was scary, I'll be honest with you.

:05:30. > :05:31.But after a while, you have to ignore it and try

:05:32. > :05:49.There are a number of services and events in the week leading up

:05:50. > :05:52.to the 75th anniversary on December 7th.

:05:53. > :05:54.Some are quiet, private events, but there are also concerts

:05:55. > :06:05.and parades planned that are free for everyone to go and see.

:06:06. > :06:08.And if you're thinking of coming to Hawaii in the near future,

:06:09. > :06:15.here are things that you will need to know.

:06:16. > :06:18.Even away from the big memorial events, it's worth booking ahead

:06:19. > :06:23.You can pick up tickets on the day but there is often a massive queue,

:06:24. > :06:28.Hawaii is home to three active volcanoes, one of which has been

:06:29. > :06:34.It is often difficult to get close to see much,

:06:35. > :06:37.so try and time your visit to the national park at dusk,

:06:38. > :06:45.so you can see the eerie glow from Kilauea more clearly.

:06:46. > :06:48.The lava tubes made up from a dried up river of red lava

:06:49. > :06:55.And the Kona coast on the west side of Hawaii's big island is the best

:06:56. > :06:58.place locally to swim with one of the world's most accessible

:06:59. > :07:07.You will have an 80% to 90% chance of seeing them and, after dark,

:07:08. > :07:17.Next this week, our thirsty explorer is off to Paris, to tackle a drink

:07:18. > :07:25.I set out to find the truth about the spirit that caused so much

:07:26. > :07:29.trouble in Europe at the start of the 20th century.

:07:30. > :07:36.Our first stop was the Combier distillery, in the town of Saumur.

:07:37. > :07:39.This place is amazing, it looks like the home of a mad

:07:40. > :07:40.scientist or something, when is this from?

:07:41. > :07:51.It is made from two basic ingredients, which are

:07:52. > :08:00.Wormwood, said to be a plant that grew in the Garden of Eden,

:08:01. > :08:03.was used for a host of medicinal purposes and believed

:08:04. > :08:06.But most people know it falsely for its mythical

:08:07. > :08:13.You can drink today a real absinthe, with the same taste

:08:14. > :08:19.Yes, yes, we did not change the recipe.

:08:20. > :08:22.At the height of its popularity, Parisians were drinking roughly six

:08:23. > :08:29.The conspiracy goes that the wine industry used its power

:08:30. > :08:31.to sensationalise and murder, and spark the beginning

:08:32. > :08:37.Today, nowadays, you can prove that it is not true.

:08:38. > :08:40.The thujone level is very low, although we respected

:08:41. > :08:46.But the levels of thujone, the chemical in wormwood,

:08:47. > :08:49.were always too low to cause hallucinations, and so France

:08:50. > :08:59.repealed in 1915 absinthe prohibition, starting in 1988.

:09:00. > :09:02.I hit the road, curious to find out if absinthe had

:09:03. > :09:23.I headed to the neighbourhood of Bastille.

:09:24. > :09:25.Here is where most of the absinthe bars are located.

:09:26. > :09:30.This is all about the absinthe, it is a French tradition, for me.

:09:31. > :09:32.First, fill the fountain with ice-cold water, next,

:09:33. > :09:34.pour two centrelitres of flavoured absinthe, ranging from

:09:35. > :09:40.Finally open the tap to drip the water very slowly over the sugar

:09:41. > :09:47.You have this tradition, the families, sometimes,

:09:48. > :09:52.It was amazing to see how misunderstood the spirit still is,

:09:53. > :10:02.even in the country where absinthe is inextricably linked with history

:10:03. > :10:04.and art, most people drinking it did so out of nostalgia.

:10:05. > :10:08.At the end of the night, no magical creatures rose

:10:09. > :10:10.from my spoon, but watching the fountain drip throughout the night

:10:11. > :10:13.was an as vertically beautiful, extremely social ritual,

:10:14. > :10:16.it was easy to see why Parisians fell in love with absinthe more

:10:17. > :10:21.With life moving so fast these days, I hope they can find the time to sit

:10:22. > :10:38.Still to come on the Travel Show: Simon is here, with tips for a dream

:10:39. > :10:42.And we braved the heat of the desert, in search of art.

:10:43. > :11:00.Welcome to the slice of the show which tackles your

:11:01. > :11:02.questions about getting the best out of travel.

:11:03. > :11:06.Coming up shortly, my tip for the ideal Canadian rail journey,

:11:07. > :11:11.and where to find guaranteed snow to provide fun for a four-year-old.

:11:12. > :11:14.But first, a lot of excitement among European train fans

:11:15. > :11:18.about the impending opening of the longest railway

:11:19. > :11:26.tunnel in the world, the 57 kilometre Gotthart Base

:11:27. > :11:35.From mid-December, expresses between Zurich and Milan

:11:36. > :11:38.will be 37 minutes faster, but rest assured, if, like me,

:11:39. > :11:42.for scenery, the old route through the mountains will still be

:11:43. > :11:48.I want to book a hotel in Sydney for New Year 2017/18.

:11:49. > :11:52.Are there any websites that book more than 12 months ahead?

:11:53. > :11:55.Unlike airlines, which rarely sell seats as far as a year ahead,

:11:56. > :11:57.hotels don't have hard and fast rules about when bookings

:11:58. > :11:59.open but many of them limit their booking window

:12:00. > :12:07.Even when their systems appear to allow more distant reservations,

:12:08. > :12:11.you will often see it sold out for any night over one year ahead,

:12:12. > :12:13.partly to prevent online bookers from selecting in error

:12:14. > :12:19.Of course, you could wait for the booking window

:12:20. > :12:21.of your chosen hotel to open, but I suggest you talk directly

:12:22. > :12:24.to the hotel reservation staff, to make sure you get the room

:12:25. > :12:32.They'll probably ask for a deposit now and the remainder

:12:33. > :12:44.Rachel Shaw has a concise request about a vast country.

:12:45. > :12:47.Vancouver is the start and end of what I regard

:12:48. > :12:49.as the optimum trip, the Rocky Mountaineer Rainforest

:12:50. > :12:52.to Gold Rush Route, from North Vancouver station.

:12:53. > :12:56.It runs via the ski resort of Whistler,

:12:57. > :12:58.and beside the Fraser River Canyon, and some incredible desert

:12:59. > :13:01.scenery, to Prince George, and the town of Jasper,

:13:02. > :13:07.From here, switch to the Canadian, the transcontinental

:13:08. > :13:10.service from Toronto, which uses the original 1955

:13:11. > :13:18.Go west through some dreamy Rocky Mountains scenery,

:13:19. > :13:20.then slumber overnight to Vancouver, where you will arrive

:13:21. > :13:36.Finally, Seb is evidently a generous grandfather.

:13:37. > :13:39.My four-year-old grandson's dream is to spend three to four days over

:13:40. > :13:41.Christmas in the place where snow is guaranteed.

:13:42. > :13:45.So I reckon for absolute certainty, you need easy access to a ski

:13:46. > :13:48.resort, where there are snowmaking facilities.

:13:49. > :13:57.The ideal location is Zell am See in north-west Austria,

:13:58. > :13:59.a beautiful town set magnificently beside a lake.

:14:00. > :14:02.from where the train takes about 90 minutes,

:14:03. > :14:05.make sure it is daytime, because it is one of Austria's

:14:06. > :14:10.From December to April, there is a very good

:14:11. > :14:13.chance of snow here, but if for some reason it

:14:14. > :14:15.does not materialise, bus 680 will take you in less

:14:16. > :14:18.than half an hour to the result of Saalbach, which I know

:14:19. > :14:21.from experience last New Year makes prodigious amounts of snow,

:14:22. > :14:31.Whether you are looking for snow or sun, the Travel

:14:32. > :14:40.E-mail your question to the Travel Show.

:14:41. > :14:42.I will do my very best to find you an answer.

:14:43. > :14:45.From me, Simon Calder, global guru, goodbye for now,

:14:46. > :14:52.Now for a country always eager to celebrate its history,

:14:53. > :14:54.there is remarkably little commemoration of the USA's olddest

:14:55. > :14:58.heritage, art created by its Indigenous Peoples.

:14:59. > :15:01.Some may say that is not surprising, given the particularly brutal way

:15:02. > :15:02.many Native Americans were treated during settlement

:15:03. > :15:15.Here in Arizona, in the south of the US, you can find some

:15:16. > :15:22.of the biggest collections of historical Native American art.

:15:23. > :15:25.The famous tribes of Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo Indians settled

:15:26. > :15:28.here, and today they help make up the second largest total

:15:29. > :15:33.Native American population of any American state.

:15:34. > :15:42.In fact, a quarter of the state is reservation land.

:15:43. > :15:44.We drove deep into the desert, 90 miles south-west

:15:45. > :15:55.It's here, in the middle of nowhere, that you suddenly

:15:56. > :15:58.find 800 or so examples of ancient petroglyphic art.

:15:59. > :16:05.Some of these etchings go back as far as 7000 years.

:16:06. > :16:12.It's mostly created by the chipping and scraping away of the top surface

:16:13. > :16:18.of the boulders, to expose a lighter layer underneath.

:16:19. > :16:20.The patterns that you see are patterns that you would see

:16:21. > :16:23.Christopher Short is a passionate student

:16:24. > :16:27.They are all beautiful, they are all connections

:16:28. > :16:37.Remember that these people did not have any written tradition,

:16:38. > :16:39.they have oral histories, oral storytelling, and they had

:16:40. > :16:44.That is the history we have to work with.

:16:45. > :16:46.Christopher photographed traditional petroglyphss

:16:47. > :16:59.He is descended on his mother's side from an Indian tribe

:17:00. > :17:02.but he did not feel connected to his roots until he moved

:17:03. > :17:04.from Oklahoma to live here, in Arizona.

:17:05. > :17:17.I am a citizen of the Potawatomi nation.

:17:18. > :17:19.My native name means source of light. quite appropriate

:17:20. > :17:24.The work is both symbolic and naturalistic, and goes back

:17:25. > :17:30.They are believed to have been remnants of the Hohokam community;

:17:31. > :17:33.hohokam literally means "the people who came before."

:17:34. > :17:34.Native American culture is very important.

:17:35. > :17:37.It is the history of this country, and the undercurrent

:17:38. > :17:44.Before there were settlers, there was this culture,

:17:45. > :17:46.and there were these people, eating and surviving and thriving

:17:47. > :17:50.and telling stories and singing songs and making their artwork.

:17:51. > :17:58.That is something that is important enough that it has to be preserved.

:17:59. > :18:00.There is a really profound sense of whimsy in some

:18:01. > :18:06.You see representations of people with what looks like

:18:07. > :18:11.To me, that makes me laugh, that is the spirit of whimsy

:18:12. > :18:14.and the spirit of play, which I think is important in any

:18:15. > :18:22.But this site, like many others, is under threat, and the degrading

:18:23. > :18:28.of the ancient art is not just because of age or the weather.

:18:29. > :18:30.We have everything from people shooting at cultural sites

:18:31. > :18:33.like this, especially petroglyphs, shooting them

:18:34. > :18:47.Throwing paint on something, the paint does not go away,

:18:48. > :18:50.it absorbs into the rock and it is very hard

:18:51. > :18:57.Even the oils in our hands can destroy the surfaces

:18:58. > :19:00.Cheryl's job is to help in the management and protection

:19:01. > :19:03.of ancient sites like this, and in educating the wider American

:19:04. > :19:12.The modern Indigenous Peoples regard this as a very special place.

:19:13. > :19:14.It is also part of our shared heritage.

:19:15. > :19:17.A lot of these rocks are a very dark colour,

:19:18. > :19:23.The elements in this exposed landscape are an obvious problem

:19:24. > :19:26.in the preservation of the sites, but then, there is also vandalism.

:19:27. > :19:39.That is the part that becomes interesting, because there is even

:19:40. > :19:43.Some of the historians get very interested in that,

:19:44. > :19:47.and they will try to do searches on those names,

:19:48. > :19:52.to see if they were connected with some historic trails, for instance.

:19:53. > :19:54.That division between graffiti and historic is sometimes

:19:55. > :19:59.So there are real issues about preservation of

:20:00. > :20:07.But this is where Christopher steps back in.

:20:08. > :20:09.He photographs and then recreates the petroglyphs,

:20:10. > :20:18.What symbols, what artwork are you looking for,

:20:19. > :20:26.I look for stuff that is stylistically interesting but also,

:20:27. > :20:29.simple enough that when I project it, it is not

:20:30. > :20:32.These individual shapes here, like this lizard, absolutely

:20:33. > :20:42.I have taken pictures, I have added them to a library.

:20:43. > :20:44.Then it is back to his place, to photoshop the images

:20:45. > :20:58.I have put a selection there, so I can isolate it

:20:59. > :21:01.from the background, and in doing so, I am finding lines

:21:02. > :21:09.Stage three is the clever and artistic bit.

:21:10. > :21:15.Using laser projection of digitised images onto sandstone rock,

:21:16. > :21:17.which Chris has gathered from the desert.

:21:18. > :21:20.This looks like a jumble of rocks but it is very carefully set

:21:21. > :21:24.The purpose is to create what he calls impressionistic dreamscapes.

:21:25. > :21:27.Everything is set up, we are ready to go.

:21:28. > :21:42.Basically, I'm turning rock art into science fiction.

:21:43. > :21:46.This is spirit, and science, and art, all intersecting

:21:47. > :21:54.Christopher is doing more than that, he is showing how this much

:21:55. > :22:00.neglected jewel of American heritage can live on,

:22:01. > :22:09.and inform and enrich the lives of generations to come.

:22:10. > :22:12.That's it for this week, join us next week, when...

:22:13. > :22:15.There is another chance to see the journey through Bavaria,

:22:16. > :22:27.from surfing in Munich to sleeping deep underneath a mountain range.

:22:28. > :22:30.It is way past 1am, they are playing these big drums.

:22:31. > :22:36.To seeing one of the world's strangest and most noisy festivals.

:22:37. > :22:41.Don't forget, you can follow us in real time

:22:42. > :22:43.on our social media feeds, the detail should be

:22:44. > :22:47.Until next time, from me, Carmen Roberts, and the rest

:22:48. > :23:16.of The Travel Show team in Hawaii, it is goodbye.

:23:17. > :23:18.Early on this week it was pretty miserable, with heavy, persistent