BBC’s Clive Myrie details ‘really hard’ challenges away from newsroom | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

BBC newsreader Clive Myrie has shown a different side to himself after letting loose on his road trip around Italy.

The journalist was keen for viewers to see his fun side as he visited his favourite holiday destination and uncovered some hidden gems.

The trip did not come without its challenges as Clive tried his hand at some new activities.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk he said: “Particularly for a series where you don’t want it to be completely alien, you have got to have a bit of Rome and Venice and Florence.

“We go to Venice and it’s really interesting because I haven’t been for about 20 years and we are on the Grand Canal and it’s about 7am.

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“We got there at about 5.30, 6am and I’m on the Grand Canal and I realised why I loved the place, beautiful.

“It was still and quiet and then and about 8.30am, I’d say about 18 billion people turned up and I realised why I fell out of love with it.

“That was the biggest challenge in the really big, obvious tourist places – avoiding the crowds.

“And we managed to do that and not have the camera completely full of people running around with selfie sticks.

“Venice is a city of about 50,000 people and they get over 25 million tourists a year, the balance is just completely out of whack and you understand why some locals who live and work there want to try and limit the numbers coming in.”

Clive also opened up about getting to grips with a gondola, which was not easy.

“Trying to steer a gondola was really hard,” he explained. “I know programme makers would love me falling in.

“But I was not going to fall in, so I’m gripping this oar which is huge, I’m gripping it for dear life.

“You have got the oar and you are maneuvering it in a cup that’s on the edge of a vessel all with just gentle movements of the wrist and it’s so difficult.

“I just didn’t want to fall in because there was no way I could have gone to the producers and said ‘Look, you can’t put that in, cut that out’, and that’s what’s really hard.”

During the road trip, Clive travelled to the slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna and Barga, the most Scottish town in Italy.

He also discovered what makes Italian food and drink so delicious, including the technique that’s made Neapolitan pizza world-famous.

Clive Myrie’s Italian Road Trip is available to watch on BBC iPlayer