Escape to River Cottage

Elizabeth Staton travels around the world with friends

Welcome to Rudy Maxa's World, the ultimate travel experience with America's leading high-end travel expert. Join Rudy Maxa, public radio's original Savvy Traveler and contributing editor for National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Explore the Earth and the most beautiful natural paradises in the world. These stunning locales are preserved thanks to the dedication of local populations. Meet the inhabitants of these lands who have developed small businesses to welcome visitors in their environment, and helped create a new form of travel: sustainable tourism. Shot in stunning high definition, Green Paradise tells the stories of these magical places, the inhabitants who cherish the land, and those visitors who come to experience its splendors.

Join a team of tireless adventurers and experienced divers on two polar expeditions to explore the hidden faces of the Arctic and the cold depths of Greenland's fjords. They will be surrounded by a multidisciplinary team of experts made up of sailors, scientists, photographers, researchers, and doctors. Immerse yourself into the unknown in this is a fabulous human and scientific adventure.

Their network is woven like a spider's web over an immense empire: the Roman roads. Nearly 85 000 kilometers of paved roads once traversed the Roman Empire, linking Europe to Asia Minor and the Near East. For several centuries, they served as commercial roads, military routes and communication networks - for the circulation of the traders, soldiers, civil servants and messengers of the Empire. After the fall of the Empire, the paths outlived their builders, but their usage changed. For centuries, cities and villages, civilizations and cultures thus continued to develop along these routes. Today, this immense network of roads continues to traverse all of Europe. It bears witness to the wealth of ancient crafts and the diversity of traditions. Despite the domination of the Roman Empire 2 000 years ago, European countries have conserved all of their singularity. Where do we find traces of this "golden age" today? How were Roman foundations of culture and tradition reworked and developed through to the 21st century and in which regions did this occur? We set out to look for these influences on the ancient Roman roads of Europe, in villages and big cities, through encounters with artisans and the discovery of unusual social rites - by looking beyond intangible studies and dusty archaeological sites.