Custom Made - BBC Travel

Loading

Custom Made

In the past 21 years, Vienna’s Vegetable Orchestra has played nearly 300 shows all around the world (Credit: Heidrun Henke)

The world’s first vegetable orchestra

By Eliot Stein

(Credit: Tetra Images, LLC/Alamy)

How ‘real’ soy sauce should taste

By Eliot Stein & Mari Shibata

(Credit: Mari Shibata)

Japan’s art of ‘naked friendship’

By Eliot Stein & Mari Shibata

For years, Huang Yung-fu relied on donations to buy his paint (Credit: Eliot Stein)

A village rescued by a 96 year old

By Eliot Stein

Venice was importing silk from the Byzantines before Marco Polo’s journeys east (Credit: Eliot Stein)

The last velvet merchant of Venice

By Eliot Stein

Yan Jhen-Fa is Taiwan's last film poster painter

Taiwan’s last cinema poster painter

By Eliot Stein

Carlo D’Oriano has manned the Punta Carena lighthouse for the past 13 years (Credit: Eliot Stein)

The world’s last lighthouse keepers

By Eliot Stein

Denies' mailed letter sits inside the oak tree's small knothole (Credit: Eliot Stein)

A 128-year-old dating service

By Eliot Stein

After the photo went viral, tourists started flocking to La Casa del Arbol to ride the swing (Credit: Eliot Stein)

The swing people trek hours to find

By Eliot Stein

Wrocław’s two most famous dwarves, nicknamed Sisyphus, push against each other (Credit: Eliot Stein)

Adventure & Experience

The cheeky gnomes taking over a city

By Eliot Stein

Byssus, or sea silk, is one of the most coveted materials in the world (Credit: Luigi Garavaglia)

Adventure & Experience

The secret of the world’s rarest silk

By Eliot Stein

Panagiotis Skopelitis is one of only 37 people left in Antia (Credit: Eliot Stein)

Culture & Identity

Europe's most endangered language?

By Eliot Stein

Su filindeu is about half as wide as angel-hair pasta (Credit: Eliot Stein)

The secret behind Italy’s rarest pasta

By Eliot Stein