Tamina Kallert in “Wonderful” (here in Norway)
Photo: WDR. All rights reserved.
As much as I don’t appreciate traveling itself, I love travel reports (Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, Montaigne) and travel programs (Hardy Krüger, Captain Hansen, Bettina Tietjen). The most popular show on WDR has to be “Wunderschön” with Tamina Kallert. Meanwhile, Judith Rakers has made a few trips to northern German lake landscapes that correspond to the cliché of the “cool blonde”. Where she is, a fresh breeze blows.
But Tamina Kallert is a whirlwind herself. She always packs small souvenirs in a backpack marked “Wonderful” that viewers can later win (the replays say “No raffle today”) – but actually she should raffle off a knapsack containing her marshal’s baton of happiness.
Their radiance enchants even the fiercest islander and the grumpiest fringed pony in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Tamina Kallert has a gift that is necessary for traveling: she is enthusiastic about everything she encounters. She doesn’t drink whiskey – now she drinks the malt in a pub. She has never eaten haggis before – now she orders a portion of it. She has never ridden an e-bike before – now she is going on an expedition with a local cyclist.
She enjoys all of this. She climbs into low mud huts and towers. She visits a weaver who makes the world-famous Scottish tweed. She gets on ferries and motorboats. You also learn a lot about the island of Lewis and Harris. Paul McCartney could write a song about her. Lewis, not Tamina.
More from Arne Willander
The most beautiful show with Tamina Kallert is the journey through Emilia-Romagna. In this enchanting cultural landscape she inquires about how Parmesan cheese and tagliatelle are made, she visits the oldest university in the world in Bologna and meets Nicoletta, Luciano Pavarotti’s widow, in Modena. She still lives in the house that Luciano built (well, decorated to his specifications) and has all the photos draped in the rooms. Tamina walks through Bologna with a German student and drinks red wine with an elegant Signore on a hill. Even though she doesn’t usually drink red wine.
In short: Traveling with Tamina Kallert is perfect.