Historic Walks

Katy Haswell guides us through this historic “City Of Power” as she makes her way along Whitehall in the west of London. She pauses to discover places saturated with the history which has shaped the sometimes gory past of this fascinating country.

In 1851 Prince Albert husband of Queen Victoria held The Great Exhibition. It promoted the best of the British Empire with exhibits brought from all over the world. It was a runaway success and with the large profit generated Albert purchased a large swath of west London on which he planned to build “An Area Of Culture And Learning” This corner of London came to be known Albertopolis and this is where Katy Haswell explores today.

It’s U.S. Independence Day in Philadelphia and host Justine Shapiro, after soaking up some good old fashioned July 4th ambiance, goes beyond the traditional parade route. She embarks on a walking tour that gives her a peek inside the oldest institutions and neighbourhoods that were the pre-revolutionary backdrop to inventing the very concept of the United States.

Host Justine Shapiro does a walking tour of the historic center of Old Hollywood. Along the way, she talks to historians, writers, a projectionist, a starlet, and a cemetery counsellor, all with a unique take on the history of Hollywood. Justine learns about the eternal allure of the movie capital, the fantasy architecture of the time, the art and craft of actually projecting old movie prints, and how a small rural town blew up into a globally known destination, all founded on the dreams and ephemeral magic of film.

In the heart of Washington D.C. is a green space known as the National Mall, which harbours a collection memorials and monuments dedicated to the sweeping history of the nation. Chaka Forman touches base with some of these landmarks in a single afternoon’s Historical Walk and in the process span hundreds of years of American history in one afternoon!

New York’s skyline is world famous – and it’s punctuated by the silhouettes of some of the most iconic skyscrapers in the world. Host Chaka Forman discovers you can actually fit, in chronological order, a nice collection of 20th century architectural wonders on a walk you can do in one afternoon.