I'd love people to realise that the world is marvellous

BEER-BREWING nuns in Bavaria and Romanian witches were just some of Joanna Lumley's more memorable encounters during her latest television journey.

- MARION MCMULLEN learns

Joanna Lumley's Danube starts on ITV on Friday and sees her embarking on an adventure across the heart of Europe following the most international river in the world, the 1,770-mile-long Danube. It took her from its origins beneath the pines of Germany's Black Forest all the way to the Black Sea.

"I couldn't be more interested and in love with geography, and the world as a whole, but I was pretty thick about the Danube," says Joanna. "I didn't realise that it is Europe's longest and most important river and that it went through 10 different countries and that, for centuries, for millennia, it's formed boundaries, been a waterway edged to different countries and is central to all of our history, going right back to the Roman days."

The Indian-born actress and model turned 79 this month and loves meeting local people on her travels, She says: "In Romania I met a coven of witches who were also Romani travellers. That was extraordinary.

"They are phenomenal women and I was involved in a ceremony on the Danube, it was rather like a Druid ceremony, where they look to north, south, east and west, earth, air, light, water, all these different qualities they sum-mon up and make peace with, banish bad things, put light into the shadows to make the world a better place.

"They are white witches, they're good witches, and they are so glamorous and so fantastic.