New Europe was very much a people-focussed journey. Fascinating to hear the tales, good and bad, of those so recently freed from Communism. So many countries in such a small area and all different and distinctive. Cappadocia in Turkey wins the prize for the best landscape, but there are some dark undertones of the old Europe, like Auschwitz, and Hitler’s holiday camp on Rugen Island. Thanks to Russian lady in Estonia, I now know what it’s like to have leech treatment. Oww!
Starting out: on the top of the Julian Alps, with Italy behind me and Slovenia ahead.
Lake Bled and the 1,000 year-old town around it. The church in the middle looks as if it's a ferry crossing the water.
The market at Rijeka. A cathedral of fish.
Diocletian's Palace, Split. The peristyle is the heart of these massive Roman remains. The black granite sphinx is pre-Christian and the white bell-tower, begun in the thirteenth century, wasn't finished until 1908.
Kamel Ratkusic shows me how Mostar, once the cosmopolitan heart of Herzegovina, is recovering from the destructive war of the 1990s.
Inside a restored section of the tunnel. An average of 4,000 people used it each day for over two years.
The fine limestone paved main street that runs the length of the old city. Always busy when the cruise ships are in.
Looking like giant jellyfish washed ashore, a few of the 400,000 concrete bunkers put up to guard Albania during the Hoxha regime dot the beach at Durrës.
Politics with colours. How to brighten a drab city without spending too much money.
Edi Rama, artist-mayor of Tirana, shows me his 'therapeutic diary'.
In the Treskavec monastery above Prilep, with Brother Kalist. Behind us is the fourteenth-century Church of St Bogorodica. People walk miles to worship here.
Mass paneurythmic dancing, the highlight of the year for the White Brotherhood.
This is Orthodox country and icons abound in the streets near the Alexander Nevski Church in Sofia.
Dazzled in Edirne. With Selen in the Selimiye Cami mosque, masterpiece of the great Ottoman architect Sinan, who's buried in the grounds.
Wrestlers in action. Buttocks can be used for leverage.
On the Galata Bridge, which crosses the Golden Horn. The poster, sponsored by Istanbul City Council, bears the words of Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey: 'Our most sacred duty is to keep the Republic alive'.
A simit-seller tempts the crowd with his bread rings coated in sesame seed.
Among the extraordinarily eroded pillars of volcanic rock in what they call The Valley of Love. I can't think why.
A cold clear morning in Cappadocia. Perfect conditions for ballooning and a perfect way to see this uniquely weird landscape, highlighted by a blanket of freshly fallen snow.
Tucking into supper, Moldovan country style. Helena grows all her own vegetables, bakes her own bread and makes her own wine.
One of Moldova's favourite sons, Glebus Sainciuc (in the middle) with his son Lika in the studio where he makes faces.
The lumberjacks' train climbs up one of the most isolated valleys of the north Romanian province of Maramures.
Some of Stan Ion Patras' work in the 'Merry Cemetery' at Sapanta. Apart from anything else, a vibrant tapestry of local life.
The soaring walls of Bran Castle, around which Bram Stoker built the Dracula myth.
Dracula schlock, on sale in the car park.
Motoring down the Danube. Braca Petrovic shows me that his amphibious Porsche can still cut the mustard.
Epic entrance to the famous Gellért Spa. The therapeutic waters that emerge here have been an attraction since Roman times.
The House of Terror is full of striking theatrical effects, like this Soviet tank trapped beside a wall of victims' photos.
Lenin still stands tall in the Crimea. Yalta's visitors take a break on the steps.
The Great Patriotic War Museum is full of heroic, and unexpectedly moving, Soviet statuary. Independent though Ukraine is now, no-one would ever suggest relocating them.
The concrete suitcases of Viinistu remind us of those who had to flee Estonia in the Second World War, including the man whose money created this arts complex.
With three close friends, giving blood at the hirudotherapy clinic.
Celebrating Jani (the summer solstice) in the Latvian countryside. Spectacular effects of the hair tonic.
The Ventspils radio telescope, through which Soviet Russia listened to the world, was saved from destruction by a dedicated group of local scientists and engineers.
Remains of the revolution. Soviet murals at an abandoned community centre near the Ventspils telescope.
The Baltic shore from the back of Communist leader Brezhnev's villa at Palanga, Lithuania.
The Hill of Crosses, symbol of Lithuanian freedom.
Knights in shining armour at the jousting contest, the fiery finale of National Day.
The Gdańsk Shipyards, where Lech Walesa worked, are still in business, but only just. Behind me and Andrej, the general manager, their last big contract takes shape.
A sumptuous Baroque chapel at Jasna Góra monastery, under whose roof is the Black Madonna, symbol of Polish independence.
At Auschwitz II-Birkenau the railway became a murder weapon. Flowers on the line with the gatehouse in the background.
Arriving in Slovakia in style. The compact, but breathtaking, High Tatra Mountains. The snow-filled valley leads down to the Slovakian plain.
The magnificence of Prague. The Old Town Square, dominated by the 260-foot twin towers of the Church of Our Lady before Týn. Once associated with the reform movement of Jan Hus, it was taken over by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century.
Looking into it. State of the art lavatory production line at Meissen.
A DC-3, used in the Berlin airlift of 1948, flies me over Rügen Island. Running along the shore below me is Prora, Hitler's dream of a holiday camp for the Third Reich. It's just too big for anyone to know what to do with it.
Journey's end, by the Baltic Sea, full of hope. Could this be the time when a new Europe of co-operation replaces an old Europe of conflict?
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