With her new show Joanna Lumley’s Danube about to hit screens, the actor and presenter teases her encounters with beer-brewing nuns, Lederhosen-wearing dancers and even a Eurovision winner

Joanna Lumley embarks on another epic journey(Image: ITV)

As she embarks on her latest epic travel show, Joanna Lumley insists that everyone should live life to the full and explore the world. The 79-year-old, who is back on ITV next week with a rip-roaring journey down the Danube, says: “I’d love people to realise the world is marvellous. You’ve only got one life, you must live it to the full. Get up before dawn and go somewhere odd. Go on a local bus, don’t just lie by the pool.”

Having cemented her status as an iconic travel presenter, the actress has travelled far and wide but reveals she can’t decide on a favourite place as every new place beats the last. She says: “I feel like rather an unfaithful flirt because I think somewhere is extraordinary, then I go somewhere else and think that’s the best.”

In Joanna Lumley’s Danube, she follows the most international river in the world across the heart of Europe, tracking the river from its origins beneath the pines of Germany’s Black Forest all the way to the Black Sea. On the way, she encounters Bavaria’s beer-brewing nuns, Slovakia’s stunning snow-capped peaks, Hungary’s Great Plain and its distinctive cowboys, the majesty of Vienna and Budapest, the raw beauty of Transylvania and the unique wilderness that is the Danube Delta.

A group of lederhosen-wearing dancers entertain on Joanna’s travels(Image: ITV)

She also meets the Vienna Boys Choir, Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst and visits a Granny Cafe, set up to help combat loneliness for the elderly. As Joanna chats to Marianne, who runs the cafe, she says: “It touches my heart this, I love it. Because I’m an Oma, a granny, and it makes sense. We are the same age, we are old but we are not finished, we’ve got much to do, we’ve got love to give, skills. This is one of the loveliest places I’ve ever visited, because it’s people being looked after by grannies…I think we should have more of these around the world.”

Joanna adds: “The Lederhosen dancers, a group of middle-aged gay men, were quite out of this world, doing this heroic dancing. I met a coven of witches who were also Romani travellers. They summon up and make peace with and banish bad things, put light into the shadows. They did this great ceremony with masses of candles, the camera boys nearly died from the heat.”

“And I can’t forget the brewing nuns, making beer which they sold. When I asked the sister if she thought God would approve of alcohol, she said ‘I think God wants us to be happy and alcohol makes us happy’. That was the sweetest answer I’ve ever heard.”

Joanna says we must ‘live life to the full’(Image: ITV)

Joanna adds: “I was pretty thick about the Danube – I didn’t realise that it’s Europe’s longest and most important river. I did so much thinking and reflecting on how we neglect geography at our peril. Mountains and lakes and rivers like this have defined our history and which country we belong to and where the borders end.”

She adds: “This is the river that has carried goods and people up and down it. It’s had wars fought over it. It’s created boundaries. And to be here, at the beginning of its journey, it’s just completely dazzling.”

“Everything about this particular trip was eye-opening. It was terribly touching, very funny and very extreme. You could think, ‘Oh it’s just Europe,’ but it was extraordinary. Sometimes it’s easy to think you know Europe, because it is near, but we might know, say, The Tower of Pisa, The Eiffel Tower, Berlin, Spain, but we don’t really, really know everywhere: and as for Eastern Europe, it was thrilling. I thought every part of it was just magic. So I was on tenterhooks from the very start and the series really shows a cross-section of incredible things.”

*Joanna Lumley’s Danube airs Friday 23rd May on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm.