TV HIGHLIGHTS Tough, really? I judge muffins
Paul Hollywood swaps the Bake Off tent for the open roads of Europe in his new series, Continental Road Trip. The baker and presenter tells viewers will get to see a whole new side of him Paul, who shared his enthusiasm for every night and go and look at it motors on BBC programmes Racing because I just loved it.” Legends and Licence To Thrill: Paul No wonder he describes his latest Hollywood Meets Aston Martin in show, Paul Hollywood’s Big Continental 2015. Road Trip,as “a dream job for
The same year he represented the me”. racing team Beechdean Aston Martin In the three-part series, Paul travels in the British GT Championship. to Germany, France and Italy,
“When I was about 13, I fell in love endeavouring to understand more with the TR7. Don’t ask me why, I about each country through its love just did. It was this chocolate one of cars. with chequered seats in a garage “It didn’t feel like work,” he says. down the road from where we grew “The travel was just amazing we went up in the Wirral,” he recalls in his to some really beautiful places. I familiar Liverpool twang. thought, ‘This is magic, it really is “I used to go and watch this car magic’.”
One of his most memorable experiences was driving around Italy in a Lamborghini alongside Strictly Come Dancing’s Bruno Tonioli.
“We nearly got arrested for speeding around Rome. He was petrified, bless him,” recalls Paul, who was particularly taken with Ivrea in north-west Italy.
“It’s where we had the orange fight. It was mental, it really was crazy. Most of my clothes I had to chuck because they stunk of orange. I smelt like a crepe Suzette,” he says, recalling his participation in the town’s annual Battle of the Oranges.
“The people are just so passionate about what they do, which is the point we were trying to make. Even though they’re just throwing oranges, it means something.”
In Germany, he stopped off to serve up some spicy food from the back of a VW van to some nudists.
“This is a country which is very formal. We think of them as very straight, no sense of humour, and yet this country started the whole nudist movement.
“We were in the Kombi van, just going there and spending a couple of hours with these people. They were very funny, absolutely hilarious. I didn’t know where to look. Never, ever take your eye off their eyeball. Just keep your head in one place and look at them in the eye.”
Was he tempted to strip off? “When they told me, I went, ‘No, no, no. I’m not getting my kit off, it’s not going to happen’.” Not even for his fans? “They’d be disappointed if I did that!” he laughs.
Paul believes the show stands apart from others in the genre because “we’re trying to find out about the places as well as the people”.
“The cars were almost the transport to take me to the people, to learn about why Italians like supercars and hypercars,” he explains.
“The Germans – why do we think of them as quite stiff upper-lipped and all about the engineering, and things must last and [demonstrate] reliability? And why are the French very much socialist still? They don’t like bling, they don’t like sporty cars. They’d rather have a great case of wine than a fantastic car sitting on the drive.
“You can find out a lot about the place and the people by the cars they drive – and how they drive.”
The series arrives after Jeremy