From Greece to Australia: Travel the globe with CBC Gem

Have you always wanted to see the wide vistas, charming cities and rocky shores of the UK? 

How about the ancient sites and beaches of Greece?

There's a way to explore and enjoy the cultures, scenery and foods of the world while travel restrictions are in place, all from the comfort of your own home, on CBC Gem. 

A mystery, history, and comedy road trip around the UK and Ireland

On CBC Gem, you can explore London with The Tunnel, Luther, Pure, Marchlands, or get a taste of small-town British life with comedies This Country, or Brassic. Once you're convinced, go house-hunting with Escape to the Country, or take a food trip across England with Nadiya's Food Adventure.

Then, take your taste buds to Ireland with Karena & Kasey's Foreign Flavours, or go deep into the true crime series, The Secret, in Northern Ireland. 

Here are more UK-based series showing off the most scenic views and architecture of the region.

The ABC Murders

John Malkovich and Rupert Grint star in one of Agatha Christie's greatest mysteries in which Detective Poirot searches for a killer in Britain. The ABC Murders took advantage of Yorkshire, England's wealth of period locations including doubles for 1920s London. 

"Yorkshire offered us the perfect base," says Charlie Thompson, location manager for The ABC Murders. 

According to Lonely Planet, Yorkshire is "almost a country in itself." The historic county is known for its Roman and Viking heritage, Norman castles, medieval abbeys, and Industrial Revolution-era cities. 

"Couple that with a film friendly environment, Yorkshire is one of the best places for location filming in the U.K." 

The Loch

Filmed on the beautiful, haunting shores of Scotland's iconic Loch Ness, amid a community sustained by myth and bordered by untamed nature, the search for the truth becomes a matter of life and death in this gripping murder mystery, The Loch. 

Loch Ness is the perfect setting for a dramatic mystery. It is one of the largest and deepest expanses of water in the UK, and its steep banks plunge to a depth of over 800 ft. It lies south west of Inverness, the "capital of the Highlands", and is bordered by picturesque villages. Not to mention, it is known for the tale of the Loch Ness monster, Nessie. But in this mystery, the monster doesn't lurk in the depths — it walks among men, a serial killer who must be stopped.

The Victim

Watching The Victim is like going on a tour of the striking architecture of Scotland's hilly capital city of Edinburgh. The series follows a mother who seeks the whereabouts of her son's killer after he is released from prison. 

Throughout the series you'll see many Edinburgh destinations like Arthur's Seat (top right), an ancient volcano that offers unobstructed views of the city and beyond. 

A Shine of Rainbows

Set in County Donegal, Ireland, this drama film takes you on the journey of a boy adopted by a couple living in an isolated and charming home on a high meadow overlooking the sea, operating a small family farm. The idyllic setting will make you want to hike, go fishing and explore abandoned castles.

Sex, espionage and chills across Europe

The Little Drummer Girl

The seductive and mysterious series, The Little Drummer Girl follows Charlie, a fiery and brilliant young actress (Florence Pugh), who meets a stranger in Greece (Alexander Skarsgård) who draws her into a high-stakes international espionage operation. The beach (left) is filmed in the island of Naxos, Greece, while these breathtaking scenes on the right were shot at Acropolis of Athens.

The Brutalist landmark (below) is Alexandria Estate in Camden, in England — which stands in for the Munich Olympic Village in the series.

Fortitude

The fictional town of Fortitude is a place like nowhere else. It's a small mining town in the wild and savage, but eerily peaceful, landscape. It's supposed to be located on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, but is actually filmed on the east coast of Iceland, in the town of Reyðarfjörður. The remote, cold, but beautifully harsh surroundings provide a unique setting for a shocking story.

Not many tourists make it to the eastern region in Iceland. In winter, the temperature drops well below zero, the sun disappears and the mountains are covered in snow. But here, you can see the stark contrast of Reyðarfjörður in the summers. 

Winters can also be a beautiful time of year, when dawn lasts for hours, painting the sky in pinks and peaches. At dusk (3:30 p.m.) there is a clear view of the stars, and sometimes the northern lights. Activities like hiking, fishing and bird-watching are musts, as are local delicacies like reindeer burgers or langoustine bisque. 

If you still don't see the appeal of Iceland, watch Travel Man cram 10 hours of sightseeing into three, travelling by helicopter, going whale watching, as well as seeing the northern lights and the famous Blue Lagoon spa. 

Britannia

Filmed in Wales, the Czech Republic and Southern England's New Forest, Britannia is an epic drama telling the story of the determined, but terrified Roman invaders and the occupied Celts and Druids, whose lives are changed forever by the arrival of a new world order.

The Czech village of Hrubá Skála was used for the Tree of Life set. It is a protected nature reserve and a popular destination for climbers and hikers, on the edge of a sandstone 'rock town' of volcanic pillars. There, you can stay in a chateau that was originally a 14th-century castle. 

The Šembera river in the Czech Republic was where a lot of the woodland scenes took place, and Velká Amerika, meaning 'Great America' (bottom-right), also known as the Czech Grand Canyon, is a spectacular abandoned quarry.

Versailles

In every season of this Franco-Canadian series, the eloquence of the set is taken to new levels — and so is the drama. The series filled with sex, conspiracy and murder, was filmed at the iconic Palace of Versailles in France. Partly because Marie Antoinette changed much of Versailles' 17th-century décor, a lot of the show was filmed at other nearby staterooms, bedrooms and gardens, and castles. 

The series follows Louis XIV as he sets out to build Versailles in order to keep the aristocracy out of Paris and his way. But the golden prison, full of the greatest indulgence, is also crawling with betrayal and intimate secrets.

Scandinavian mysteries

CBC Gem hosts several gripping mysteries based in Norway and Sweden. 

Starring Canadian actress, Carrie-Anne Moss, Wisting is a character-driven Nordic thriller series based on Norwegian author Jørn Lier Horst's novels about police detective William Wisting. It is filmed in Larvik-Stavern and the wider area of Norway's Vestfold region, which is known for Norway's largest beach of rolling stones, the picturesque fishing village of Naverfjorden and the historic Fredriksvern Fortress, according to Visit Vestfold. It's also where you can find the most traces of Viking heritage in Norway, according to Visit Norway. 

In this bilingual Swedish and Danish show, Greyzone, secret services in Denmark and Sweden try to prevent the attack on Scandinavian soil, while a drone engineer is taken hostage. The hostage, Victoria, is caught in a double game, or "grey zone" between the strong forces of her captor and the secret services. The series teamed up with a celebrated Scandinavian psychiatrist (Michael Bruun) who has worked with the police and military forces, according to showrunner Rasmus Thorsen. 

Wallander, filmed in Ystad, Sweden, is based on the award-winning novels by Henning Mankell about a sensitive but brilliant detective, Kurt Wallander. Ystan is a southern coastal town, where nearby you can find Sweden's Stonehenge, Ale Stenar, standing stones that have featured in many Wallander stories. 

Australia: Going down under to the extremes of comedy and tragedy

There is plenty of drama in Australia. The series, The Beautiful Lie is a re-imagining of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, set in contemporary middle-class life in Melbourne, exploring the love-lives of both happy and unhappy families in all their mess and grandeur. Set in Brisbane, Safe Harbour begins when a boat of desperate asylum seekers is found by a group on a yachting holiday. High stakes crime drama, Sunshine Kings is a set in a working-class suburb of Melbourne. The story focuses on a young South Sudanese immigrant, Jacob, who has the talent and drive to better the lives of himself and his family through a career in basketball.

You can get a feel for the unique "Aussie" humour in Australian comedy series.

You may know the comedian Ronny Chieng from Trevor Noah's The Daily Show, and his Netflix special Asian Comedian Destroys America! but Ronny Chieng's 'International Student' is a series based on his own experiences as a Malaysian student in Australia, studying law at Melbourne University — the same place the series is filmed.

The hilarious comedy series about a Chinese-Australian family, The Family Law, is filmed in Brisbane. 

Next stop: New Zealand

Top of The Lake

Top of The Lake is a powerful and haunting mystery from Academy Award-winning writer and director, Jane Campion. Glenorchy, in Otago, on the South Island of New Zealand, doubles as the fictitious town of Laketop. My favourite part is when detective Robin Griffin, played by Elizabeth Moss, takes a helicopter ride above the steep mountain slopes and valleys.

You can also go to Auckland, New Zealand with Skindigenous, to learn how the Maori of New Zealand are reclaiming their tattooing tradition, passed down from generation to generation. 

Travel through time and history in South Africa

Robben Island, Cape Town and Johannesburg are popular filming destinations in South Africa. Madiba, a series which was filmed in all three, takes an intimate look at the early ties that shaped Nelson Mandela, his close friendships, personal relationships, and political alliances. The film Winnie, based on the life of Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife, was also filmed at all three locations. 

The Last Post is a six-part BBC One series set in the Yemeni city of Aden in the '60s – but the series was filmed in Cape Town.

They needed a mixture of coastal, mountain and desert settings for the complex Yemeni landscape, executive producer for the show, Margery Bone told The Sun: "Cape Town doubled perfectly for all these elements so it was an easy decision to base ourselves there."

Taste the magnificent flavours of India

Aside from following food tours, journeys of rescuing animals and caring for sick dogs, soon you can get an inside look at Bollywood: The World's Biggest Film Industry. Coming May 1 to CBC Gem, host Anita Rani has exclusive access to the largest Bollywood films and stars to reveal the extraordinary stories and secrets behind the biggest film industry on earth.

There are also visually beautiful films like Water, an Oscar-nominated drama film written and directed by Deepa Mehta. Set in 1938 colonial India, the film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. Another enlightening film, Siddharth, is a 2013 Indian-Canadian drama film directed by Richie Mehta, about a father in the search for his lost son. 

Get in the groove in Jamaica 

Home Again

Mostly filmed in Trinidad, this Canadian film tells the story of three Jamaicans who grew up in Toronto, New York and London respectively, and are deported "home" to Jamaica. 

Home Again isn't your typical resort vacation to Jamaica. The film depicts a Jamaica you're not going to see sitting on the beach, and takes you from farm homes to mansions, to dancehall clubs and packed markets, with Reggae music throughout. 

This is only the beginning of what you can find on CBC Gem. Packed with films, TV series, and documentaries — Canada, and the world is yours!