02x09 - Italy/Egypt

[bunniefuu]

[siren]

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ We're going on a visit ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ Come on,
let's go with him ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ What's that, you ask?
What is it? ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ Well, no one
wants to miss it ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ We're going on a visit ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ Have fun,
let's go with him ♪

♪ New places,
new faces ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

♪ Inspector Gadget's
field trip ♪

Inspector Gadget:
Inspector Gadget here,

up to my Gadgets in water.

Hope I don't rust.

Either I left
the sprinklers on,

or I'm in...

Let's see what else
we can find out

about this waterway world.

Go, go, Gadget field trip.

Wowsers! I'm standing
on solid ground in Venice,

but it's not very solid.

The city actually sank


were in the last hundred years.

Maybe this city needs
some platform shoes.

The city of Venice
is made up

of 118 little islands
connected by 150 canals.

Canals are
the streets of Venice...

Though they don't have
white lines down the middle.

Cars aren't allowed here,

though I snuck
my Gadgetmobile in

in a suitcase.

Everyone here
gets around by boat.

A lot of other things
are done by boat in Venice

including
a lot of bad singing.

Go, go, Gadget boat.

The water of Venice is not only
how people get around,

but it's also
one of the reasons

Venice became a city
in the first place.

Over the years,

explorers such as
marco polo and others

would travel
on trading ships

to the far east
and other ports of call.

They brought back
wine, oil, beans,

and other merchandise.

These were traded

in the thriving
marketplace of Venice.

Sightseeing
is big business in Venice.

Because everything
is a sight for wet--

eh, sore eyes.

For sightseeing,

you get
a special kind of boat.

It's called a...

Gondoliers
have been pushing gondolas

through the canals of Venice
for about 900 years,

and boy,
are their arms tired.

Over those years,

many of the boats
have changed,

but about 400
of the classic craft remain.

A gondolier is the person
who steers the gondola.

You can't miss 'em.

They're the ones
in the back of the boat

saying
"everybody sit down but me."

Besides that,
many wear black pants,

striped shirts,
and a beribboned hat.

They must all shop
at gondoliers "r" us.

Legend has it that gondoliers
become gondoliers

by being related
to other gondoliers.

It figures. who else
would wear those hats?

Being a gondolier
is a family business,

passed down from generation
to generation.

A gondolier rows this oar

which is mounted
on the left side.

To compensate for this,

the left half
of the gondola

is longer than
the right half.

If the boat wasn't built
like this,

the gondolier could row,
row, row his boat all day

but would just go round
and round in circles.

Where is this gaggle
of gondolas going?

If they're in Venice,

they could only be headed
for the grand canal.

Canal is the name
given to all the waterways

that make up
the city of Venice,

and the grand canal
is the big one.

Hence, the name.

If they named it
pee wee canal,

it wouldn't sound
nearly as grand.

About 1/3
of the canals of Venice

connect to the grand canal.

It's where venetians
go for a traffic jam.

Grand canal cuts a huge
backwards "s"

through the city of Venice.

Most of the important people
of Venice

built their palaces there.

But they like to call them
palazzos.

There has to be a dry way
to cross all these canals

other than my Gadget copter.

That would be
the bridges of Venice county...

All 400 of them.

That's a lot of bridges
over bubbled water,

and some of these
stone bridges

date as far back
as the 12th century.

Bridges in Venice

came in all shapes,
sizes, and types.

There are wooden bridges
like the...

There are stone bridges
like the...

And all the bridges
are heavily used.

Almost all the bridges
in Venice

have steps going over them.

Some are so steep
that without steps,

you'd slide right into
the cold canal.

And here's
an Inspector Gadget

field trip fact:

legend has it
that under their shoes,

gondoliers have webbed feet.

Sounds like a long shot,

but they always yell "duck!"

When they go under a bridge.

We'll just see about that
after this.

Gadget:
Inspector Gadget here,

about to uncover
the truth behind

one of the oldest myths
in Venice--

that gondoliers
have webbed feet

under those shoes

to help them
walk on water.

This man is going
to remove his shoe,

and the mystery
will be revealed.

Here we go.

Aha. what do gondoliers
have under their shoes?

Webbed socks.

I rest my case.

Let's see what other
mysteries we can unshoe--

eh, uncover.

Here we are
in the center of Venice...

Proving indisputably

that the center
is in the middle of town.

St. marks square has served

as the center of city life
for about 1,200 years.

Thousands of tourists
flock here

to gaze at the famous landmark,

grab a bite to eat,

or even feed a pigeon.

And did you know
that st. marks square

is also the lowest point
in all of Venice?

Which means
that the pigeons get wet feet

in high tide.

One of the most majestic sights
in all of Venice

is here
in st. marks square, the...

Waterways, bridges,
gondoliers, palaces--

you can see
almost all of Venice

from up here.

But wait, there's more.

Go, go, Gadget legs.

Venice is more
than a world-renowned city

of pigeons, people,
and palaces.

It's a world-class hangout
for...

Venice has an army of cats

that lounge around
the stairways and courtyards

of the palaces.

They are a part
of the flavor of Venice,

and I don't mean tuna.

Venice is also the site

of dozens of little markets
and shops

with everything
from carnival masks

to freshly made pasta
and pastries,

not that you can eat
pasta and pastries

through a carnival mask.

And there are glass shops,
dozens of glass shops.

A bull would have a heyday

on these streets.

Let's investigate.

I'll use my venetian-made
Gadget magnifying glass.

There's a little island
called murano

near the mainland of Venice,

and it's just a short hop

by...you guessed it, boat.

The island of murano
is a cluster

of glassblowing factories

that have been practicing
the art of glassblowing

for over 700 years.

By now,
they've got it down cold.

Back in 1500,

murano became
the premier glassmaker

for all of europe.

How do they do it?

Very carefully.

Glass is formed
by melting fine sand

into a liquid-like syrup.

This hot fluid
is gathered up

into a gob of molten glass

on the end of a hollow tube.

A glass shape is formed

by blowing into
the hollow end of the tube.

Glassblowers
are taught from an early age

to blow out, not suck in.

Different shapes
and thicknesses of glass

are formed by different
pressures of blowing,

while twirling the tube
with tools of the trade.

If the glass gets too cool,

it's not cool.

It has to be reheated
on the spot

with this blowtorch.

Another cool thing
about glassblowing

is the colors.

Color is added
by rolling the piece

in different colors
of sand and plastic.

When it's finished,

the glass is cut off the tube
and cooled.

Wowsers!

Next time I break a glass,

I'm gonna feel terrible.

We've cruised the canals,

gondoliered
in a grand manner,

pulled the shoe
off a gondolier,

and gloried in glass
in murano.

It's time to dry ourselves
behind the ears

and vamoose from Venice

to our next
Inspector Gadget field trip.

So don't go away.

Gadget:
Inspector Gadget here.

I'm either sailing
up the beautiful Nile

or taking a dip
in the world's longest bathtub.

I don't see
any rubber duckies,

so this must be
the Nile river in Egypt.

How long is it?

...to be exact.

And where can you find it?

Let's row, row,
radget field trip

and find out.

This salty stream
known as the Nile river

begins in burundi,

chases through 9 countries,

walks through Egypt,

and crawls
into the mediterranean sea.

You'd crawl, too,

if you were
the longest river in the world.

More than 95% of the land
in Egypt is desert--

hot, sandy,
dry as a bone desert.

This is why
almost everyone in Egypt

lives along the Nile
or in a major city,

which is still
pretty darn dry.

...the capital of Egypt

receives an average
of one inch of rain per year.

Compared to the average

in london, england,

cairo's rainfall
is just a drop in the bucket.

In other words,
without the Nile,

Egypt would be one big beach
in search of an ocean.

This is why
people call the Nile

Egypt's lifeline.

It could also be referred to

as Egypt's time line.

Egyptians have been
swimming and fishing

and living off the Nile

for over 5,000 years.

Wowsers!

I had no idea
Egyptians grew to be so old.

The Nile
gave the ancient Egyptians

the all-purpose...

Here at the...

You can see
what the people of yesterday

did with papyrus.

They tied the reeds together
and made boats.

Then they dried out the papyrus
to make sandals

so they could walk
back to the Nile

and get some more papyrus

to dry it out,
peel it, pound it,

and press it into paper.

I guess that way
they could write home

for more papyrus.

Water from the Nile
was even used

in building the pyramids.

Foot wedges were inserted
into a block of sandstone.

Then water was poured
over the wedges.

The wet wood would expand,

splitting the block
into smaller blocks.

They must have
done this a lot.

There's not a tree
left around here.

Ancient Egyptians
used the Nile to keep time.

Each morning at
sunrise, they would

fill this highly decorated
leaky bucket with water.

Inside the water clock
are 12 notches.

As the day wore on,

you could tell the time
by counting the holes

to the water level.

Each year,
the river would swell

with the rains
of central africa.

As the raging waters
tore through ancient Egypt,

they flooded the lands.

So the Egyptians
built little lakes or...

That held the water.

That way they could save up
for a non-rainy day,

which was most of the time.

They also built
irrigation channels.

With a little help,
these channels shuttled water

from the river
directly to the fields.

If they had gone directly
into the houses,

it would have made a mess.

Another name for the Nile

is Egypt's main highway.

Fishing boats, ferries,

and the age-old...

Transport people and products

from side to side
and up and down

this water highway.

On land, a ship
of a different sort

serves a similar purpose.

It's the...

Though a little slower,

this ship of the desert

can still make you seasick.

Camels are not
very lovable creatures,

but they're
desert man's best friend.

The amazing camel,
unlike humans,

can raise or lower
its temperature

to accommodate the weather.

Not only that,
the average camel can go

for over 2 weeks
without a single sip of water.

That's a long time
between fill-ups.

A camel
carrying 500-600 pounds

walks at a rate of about

Wowsers!

Look at the water clock.

Time for a field trip quiz.

What does a camel
keep in its hump?

...the hump is empty.

Or...

The answer when we return.

Gadget: we're back,
and it's time to find out

the answer
to today's field trip quiz.

The answer is...

The hump
is a camel's energy tank.

When the camel
is low on energy,

it can use
this extra supply of fat

to keep going.

As the camel
uses this energy,

the hump shrinks.

It regains its shape
once the camel

has a chance to graze again.

Ancient Egyptians
only had 3 seasons:

flooding, planting,
and harvesting,

which were based on
the annual cycles of the river.

The natural ebb and flow
of the Nile

would change forever

when the amazing...

Was finally finished in 1971.

Taller than the statue
of liberty

and longer
than the golden gate bridge,

the dam took 11 years to build.

The dam was built
to control flooding,

generate power and electricity,

and create
the biggest catch basin

in all of Egypt.

Here we are
south of the dam at lovely...

Named after President Nasser.

Stretching some 300 miles,

this man-made lake can hold

up to 2 years of Nile water.

In order to make room
for this princely puddle,

and 19 ancient monuments

had to find new places to live.

The toughest job in this effort
to preserve history

was the relocation of the...

These 2 magnificent temples

were built
over 3,000 years ago

by the...

The temple is guarded

by 4 colossal statues
of ramses himself.

Each statue weighs 1,200 tons

and sits 67 feet high.

Guess he liked looking
at himself

in a big way.

In 1963, cutters and engineers

from all over the world

came to Aswan
to help move the temple.

How did they do it?

Very carefully.

The temples were cut into...

Some of which weighed
as much as 3 school buses.

Each piece
in this gigantic puzzle

was numbered,

removed by crane,

then placed on a flatbed truck.

They brought each piece
to a storage yard

where it waited patiently
for about a year and a half

until its number was called.

Back on the truck,

the piece
was tenderly transported


and 690 feet inland,

then lifted back into place.

This giant,
puzzle-like project

was so precisely done

that pieces were repositioned

within a flea's length
of their original placement.

Why is this ancient
and modern wonder

called the sun temple?

Ramses ii
wanted to celebrate

in his reign.

Ancient astronomer priests

situated at the temple
so exactly

that twice each year

the rays of the rising sun

shined 200 feet
back into the temple,

striking 2 symbolic statues.

Wowsers! That's what I call
planning ahead.

Whew!

My water watch
says it's time to go--

that or I'm a pint low
on carburetor fluid.

Well, we've navigated
the Nile,

clocked a camel,

tampered with a temple,

sipped the salty waters
of Aswan,

even walked on water.

[splash]

almost.

Until next time,

go, go, Gadget field trip!