{"id":62,"date":"2012-01-27T00:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T00:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2013\/05\/22\/hitting-the-road\/"},"modified":"2018-05-05T18:35:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T18:35:57","slug":"hitting-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first episode of On Hannibal’s Trail<\/a><\/em> that aired last Friday did okay we think. \u00a0We’re not sure how to judge this, but ‘Hitting the Road’ was\u00a0watched by more than 1 million people in the UK which is about four times the viewing figures we were getting on BBCFour when the show aired for the first time back in 2010. \u00a0 You can read more about that here (if you really want to):<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.digitalspy.com\/british-tv\/s150\/celebrity-big-brother\/news\/a361380\/celebrity-big-brother-double-eviction-scores-25m-for-channel-5.html<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Times<\/em>\u00a0newspaper said quite nice things about this opening episode in a preview on January 14th. \u00a0We couldn’t access this review until now because\u00a0<\/span>The Times<\/em>\u00a0is for subscribers only, but here it is:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>On Hannibal\u2019s Trail –\u00a0<\/strong>BBC Two, 8.30pm<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Originally shown on BBC Four in 2010 as part of the channel\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Call of the Wild\u00a0season,\u00a0<\/span>On Hannibal\u2019s Trail\u00a0is an odd beast. It is a six-part series in which the Australian journalist Danny Wood and his two brothers, Sam and Ben, cycle 2,500 miles from Spain to Italy to retrace the steps of the Carthaginian commander and it sits somewhere between historiography and adventure bromance. Of the three, Sam is an archaeologist for whom Hannibal is a hero, so there is no shortage of insight. In tonight\u2019s opening episode the trio pass through the palms of Elche, the beaches of Benidorm and Valencia\u2019s zoo, meeting the Australian cyclist Matthew Lloyd along the way.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That review was by David Chater – thanks David! And yes we did depend heavily on Sam, not just for insights but to drag us over all those hills! \u00a0And at the end of the next episode, ‘Barca! Barca! Barca!’, that airs Friday 27th Jan at 830pm, we meet our first real hills in the Pyrenees and have a lot of fun getting there. \u00a0The territory we pass through – from the Ebro Delta, to Barcelona, to the ancient ruins of Ampurias and finally the Pyrenees, is really pretty but I don’t think we were appreciating it quite as much as we should have at the time because we were distracted by the physical strain of our epic adventure. \u00a0Through our visit to the ruins of Ampurias we were also getting more of a feel for the sort of man Hannibal was, what his civilization was like but also how difficult it is for historians today to really come to grips with what this civilization was really like. Alberto Ruiz Cabrero from the Phoenician and Punic Studies Centre at Madrid’s Complutense University had this to say in our ‘Experts’ section:<\/span><\/p>\n

“In spite of the fact that the Phoenicians brought the alphabet to the ancient world, because of the fact that they wrote on Papyrus, we’ve lost all their documentation. Their position between an Oriental or Semitic style court and the innovations on which Hellenistic societies were based is a great unkown for investigators.”<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hopefully we shed a little light in Episode 2. \u00a0One of the funny and embarrassing moments in tomorrow’s episode occurrs on the beach when we feast on a suckling pig \u00a0– a welcome break from the pasta you might say, well, not exactly. \u00a0When the piglet isn’t gulped down quite as heartily as it could have been if we’d liked our pork on the rare side, our friend and chef Adam Melonas<\/a> doesn’t quite do a Gordon Ramsay<\/a> on us, but, well, you’ll see. \u00a0I hope Adam still thinks of me as a friend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first episode of On Hannibal’s Trail that aired last Friday did okay we think. \u00a0We’re not sure how to judge this, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-filming"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first episode of On Hannibal’s Trail that aired last Friday did okay we think. \u00a0We’re not sure how to judge this, […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"On Hannibal's Trail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Danny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Danny\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Danny\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9\"},\"headline\":\"Hitting the Road\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\"},\"wordCount\":593,\"articleSection\":[\"Cycling\",\"Filming\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\",\"name\":\"Hitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hitting the Road\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/\",\"name\":\"On Hannibal's Trail\",\"description\":\"A BBC History Documentary\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9\",\"name\":\"Danny\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99ca03a6d8d0f57d0f938c2923e19441dae7feae03c4ccdaa7b7e559bb97b867?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99ca03a6d8d0f57d0f938c2923e19441dae7feae03c4ccdaa7b7e559bb97b867?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Danny\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/author\/danny\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail","og_description":"The first episode of On Hannibal’s Trail that aired last Friday did okay we think. \u00a0We’re not sure how to judge this, […]","og_url":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/","og_site_name":"On Hannibal's Trail","article_published_time":"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00","author":"Danny","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Danny","Estimated reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/"},"author":{"name":"Danny","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9"},"headline":"Hitting the Road","datePublished":"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/"},"wordCount":593,"articleSection":["Cycling","Filming"],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/","url":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/","name":"Hitting the Road - On Hannibal's Trail","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-01-27T00:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-05-05T18:35:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/2012\/01\/27\/hitting-the-road\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hitting the Road"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#website","url":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/","name":"On Hannibal's Trail","description":"A BBC History Documentary","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/f2e960e7d2c830b161415ba9c7a464f9","name":"Danny","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99ca03a6d8d0f57d0f938c2923e19441dae7feae03c4ccdaa7b7e559bb97b867?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99ca03a6d8d0f57d0f938c2923e19441dae7feae03c4ccdaa7b7e559bb97b867?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Danny"},"url":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/author\/danny\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/on-hannibals-trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}