“Europe is such a magnificent place,” says Ewan McGregor, ahead of the launch of the fourth instalment of Long Way Home, a series that follows the actor and his long-time friend and collaborator Charley Boorman on an epic motorcycle journey.
The latest series, which premiers on Apple TV+ on Friday, comes 21 years after the duo embarked on their first on-screen biking adventure. In 2004, Long Way Round followed them on a 19,000-mile journey across the globe from London through Europe and Asia to New York.
Long Way Down followed in 2007 and saw McGregor and Boorman traverse more than 15,000 miles from John o’ Groats in Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa, through Tunisia, Sudan and Rwanda, where they met president Paul Kagame, on their BMW R1200GS Adventure bikes which are now on display at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow.
With each series comes a new motorcycle – the bikes are as important as the route. For the latest chapter, McGregor rode a 1974 Moto Guzzi 850 Eldorado former police bike, while Boorman revived a 1972 BMW R75/5.
“There’s soul in a bike that’s been around for a long time,” McGregor says. “People smile and wave when you pass – these beautiful old bikes create real connection,” Boorman adds.
Long Way Up in 2020 saw the pair cover 13,000 miles from Ushuaia at the tip of South America through 13 countries up to Los Angeles, exploring South and Central America’s epic and diverse landscapes from the saddle of prototype electric Harley-Davidsons.
It was during this trip that the two decided their next trip should be closer to home, in Europe.
“We were on our trickiest terrain in the Bolivian desert. It was very rutted, probably our most challenging bit of riding,” McGregor tells The i Paper. “But it’s moments like that we usually have the best time.
“We started talking about Scandinavia, that it would be an amazing part of the world to explore. There’s part of us that never wants to stop being on the road. It’s such an escape, such an adventure.”
So they set about making it a reality. The pair set off from McGregor’s home in the Highlands last summer, taking the long way home to Boorman’s house in Surrey over 10 weeks and 17 countries in northern, central and eastern Europe.
They board a ferry from the UK to the Netherlands, where they sample local herring, prepared according to Amsterdam tradition and served with onion and pickle, before heading to northern Germany to visit Boorman’s extended family in the town of Wesselburen, Schleswig-Holstein.
Continuing north into Denmark, McGregor’s bike gives way but, luckily, a local biker club comes to the rescue.
It’s one of several instances that show how people are at the heart of the pair’s motorcycle adventures. Estonian mechanics fix McGregor’s bike, and the pair also meet volunteers at a Ukrainian refugee centre in Poland.
(Photo: Max Cruz/Apple TV+)
“The one thing that both Ewan and I have really seen is that everywhere we go, 95 per cent of the people we met in each of those countries are good,” Boorman adds.
“Maybe part of that is riding a motorcycle – we’re dusty, we look haggard and tired and people kind of want to look after us. People have always been so generous, especially on the breakdowns. They rally together and are super interested in where we’re coming from, where we are going.”
Another highlight on this European odyssey was the food, especially compared to Mongolian cuisine during Long Way Round, something Boorman described as “a bit rough”.
As well as cured fish in northern Europe, they inevitably enjoyed indulging in cheese and chocolate in Switzerland.
“Half the time, we were eating in a petrol station,” McGregor explains, “so when we had days off, we’d really enjoy the food.”
A standout was the Lindt factory in Kilchberg near Zurich – the Star Wars actor remembers the chocolate fountain with particular fondness.
Another highlight for McGregor was crossing Øresund Bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo in Sweden, which lends its name to the eponymous Scandi noir TV show – “I am a massive fan of the television series”.
Along with the food, the landscapes and the people, the pair’s friendship and their mutual love of motorbikes is a constant theme. They met nearly 30 years ago on the set of The Serpent’s Kiss, in which McGregor starred and Boorman, then working as an actor, played a part.
“We both had new babies,” McGregor remembers, “so we had that in common, but we also had motorbikes. At a launch party, we started talking about motorbikes and we’ve never talked about anything else since.”
The pair have also shared “good times and bad, ups and downs, bad weather, difficult terrain, falling off, hurting yourself”, he says.
“That’s an amazing experience to share with your best friend.”
The series has allowed them the freedom to explore the world at their own pace. “A by-product of making movies [is that] it’s like a machine, like a military exercise,” McGregor says, clearly delighted that he and Boorman have far more control over their day-to-day lives while on the go.
“Charley and I make the calls on our trips, where we stop and what we’re going to see, obviously assisted by our producers and our team who throw up ideas,” he says.
As to whether the Long Way Home means this series will be their last, the friends are quick to disprove the title.
“There’s always that conversation at the end of each trip,” Boorman says, while McGregor insists, “no, I wouldn’t say it’s the end of the line”, before adding, “I mean, you never know”.
Long Way Home is available to watch on Apple TV+ from 9 May.
