the nhs test and trace system, which is likely to cost the taxpayer £37 billion failed to prevent lockdowns and there is no evidence that cut the number of coronavirus infections. those other findings in the house of commons�* public accounts committee, publishing a highly critical report of the scheme. it said the cost was staggering and the taxpayers were being treated like a cash machine. hugh pym reports. a testing site, today, now part of everyday life, but it has cost a lot of money to get where we are and a highly critical report by mps has fuelled a new debate on what test and trace has achieved. it was raised at prime minister�*s questions. the government is throwing a staggering £37 billion at a test and trace system that we know has made barely any difference. the prime minister defended its performance. it is thanks to nhs test and trace that we're able to send kids back to school and begin cautiously and irreversibly to reopen our economy and restart our lives. the £37 billion budget is over two years. the report says it isn�*t clear that�*s making a measurable difference. it says the system has too many expensive contractors, including private consultants. 2,500 were still on the books last month with one paid more lots of money was being thrown at lots of projects and, you know, in many cases there are big questions about how that money has been allocated, how it is being spent. it�*s worth remembering that early on in the first wave there was nothing like this. the test and trace network had to be created from scratch. the key issue is, has it been as effective as it should have been? there were long waits at testing centres, and for results, when infections rose rapidly in september and october, and the system failed to keep up, with people sometimes asked to drive 100 miles or more to get a test. it�*s an absolute joke! i have had to bring my three kids out of school. i'lljust have to go back home and try again, i guess. the performance figures have improved since those problems last year. nearly 83% of test results came back in 2a hours in the last reported week in february, compared with only around 33.5% one week in october. the proportion of close contacts reached was more than 93% in late february, compared with about 60% back in october. the number of daily tests carried out has more than doubled since the new year to over a million yesterday, though this includes those done in schools, which have reopened. yes, we do a very large number of tests. we successfully reach a very large number of people to ask them to self—isolate. that is what test and trace was set up to do, so this report accuses us of delivering what we said we were going to do, to build the service that the country�*s needed in this extraordinary crisis that we are all facing. some argue that local council officials knocking on doors rather than a national call centre system is the best way to reach contacts of those who test positive. health leaders in england say both approaches are required. hugh pym, bbc news. now on bbc news: the travel show. this week, a look back at some of our favourite european adventures. we test drive the continent�*s fastest and highest ride. watch some masterpiece maintenance in the netherlands. it looks incredible. yeah. oh, here we go again. and travel back in time — over 2000 years — as wejoin the crew of a replica galley in greece. hello, and welcome to the travel show, coming to you from a very chilly st pancras station. now, normally, this place would be bustling with people going back and forth from the uk to the continent on the eurostar. pre—pandemic, it was carrying around 11 million passengers every year between britain and mainland europe, but that number has dropped by 95% since last march and, today, i can only see two outbound trains on the board. unfortunately, i�*m not catching a train today as we are still under lockdown, but that isn�*t going to stop us from looking back at some of our favourite european trips. we begin with christa�*s trip to france in 2018, marking the 70th anniversary of one of the country�*s most iconic cars — the citroen 2cv. the 2cv was born in 19118 in the immediate aftermath of world war ii. the very first prototypes, as well as the very last model and all of the others in between, are kept here at the citroen heritage centre in the north of paris. oh, and here they are. they�*ve really got character. and this one — you can probably see from the bullet holes, must have been from the bond film for your eyes only. with its unique shape, the 2cv — short for deux chevaux, or two horses — quickly came to fame, and not only in movies. within a few decades, the car became a common sight on france�*s roads, and in its countryside. the founding design principle of this car was four wheels under an umbrella — the idea of a light car, but with really good suspension, so you could drive over a field with four passengers and a basket of eggs on your lap and, by the end of yourjourney, none of the eggs would have broken. they�*re also a fun addition to any weekend in the capital. bonjour! bonjour, christa! vincent, good to meet you. good to meet you. this must be it. it is. this is it. your turn to drive. excellent! here we go. vincent takes guided tours around paris. i�*m definitely going to need a lesson, vincent. he�*ll even let you drive, if you ask nicely. you can feel the engine under yourfoot, you know. and the noise of the car, and it�*s very physical and it�*s not a car that goes very fast, but it�*s not the goal, you know. it is a very kind of active experience. yeah! do its work. you have to be involved. yeah! exactly. and on the left, this is the louvre museum. ah! there are no airbags, the windows are not electric, and as for ac, let�*s just say it�*s pretty rudimentary. but, for some reason, the french really seem to love the 2cv. as long as that remains the case, the car they called the �*tin snail�* will keep ploughing its own furrow on slow lanes everywhere. christa there in paris. next, wejoin mike in central bulgaria to visit a piece of alien architecture. it�*s a spectacular building shaped like a ufo that�*s been left abandoned since the fall of the iron curtain. at 70m high and 60m wide, buzludzha look out across the balkan mountains. completed in 1981, it was built as an iconic national monument to glorify the communist party. it�*s here because this was the birthplace of the bulgarian socialist movement. this is powerful. powerful architecture. following the collapse of the regime, the building was abandoned and later shut off to the public as it fell into disrepair. da—da—daaaa! oh, wow. here it is. me first? welcome. it�*s seen better days, hasn�*t it? definitely. it cost the equivalent of $35 million in today�*s money since it was abandoned, the years, they haven�*t been kind. dora, it�*s... ..it�*s incredible. there�*s some work to do, obviously, but it�*s still very impressive. look at this. 50 square metres of mosaics right on top. there is the symbol of communism, actually — the hammer and sickle — and you can read in cyrillic around it "workers from the world, unite". so there is a mosaic on the ceiling, but the entire perimeter is also covered in mosaic. we have actually more than 1,000 square metres of mosaic inside buzludzha. out of all of these, which one is your favourite? over there — the people defeating a dragon, and the dragon should represent the capitalism, monarchy and fascism — all the enemies of communism — and it�*s defeated by the communist people. when the monument opened, thousands came from all over the country to marvel at its beauty. there were sound and light shows and talks from well—known communist artists and poets. time could be running out for buzludzha. if the roof collapses, the walls will go, too, and the building will be lost. there�*s now an urgent debate about what exactly to do with the monument. those who remember the repressions and the hardships of the communist era would like to see it destroyed. others want to restore it to its former glory. but dora is working on a proposal to preserve it as a museum and a place where bulgarians can discuss the past. it was built to represent and glorify the communist idea, and we do not want to do this nowadays. we just want to know the history, want to understand why it was built. but if we keep it intact and leave the symbols in their present condition, i think this will be much more powerful and meaningful for the next generation to understand. mike there in bulgaria, back in 2018. since we filmed that, dora�*s mission to save the building has had some success. in 2020, with the support she led an international team of experts on a project to protect those extraordinary mosaics around the interior and this year, they�*re hoping to publish a conservation management plan, outlining the steps required to open this iconic but controversial building to the public. to keep track of their progress, you can visit their website. we are going to speed things up now with a trip to portaventura theme park in spain, home to the ferrari land roller coaster, red force. sounds ominous, doesn�*t it? it�*s europe�*s tallest and fastest ever ride, going from zero to 180 kilometres an hour in just five seconds. and we managed to persuade rajan to test it outjust before it opened to the public in 2017. how much testing goes on before it is open to the public? around 6,000. times? cycles. 6,000 cycles? 0k. thankfully, i have this veteran of nearly 1,300 different roller—coasters in 21 different countries as company. what i love now, it�*s the thrill of the chase. it�*s finding those coasters that are in obscure places — i go off to a place like china — to find something different that you haven�*t done before and other people haven�*t gone to. i went to dubai recently and i did 25 theme parks in six days. this is more than your average hobby. marcus spends up to two months a year in theme parks in chase of thrills... here we go! ..and now advises on how to maximise roller—coaster excitement. shall we go for it then? yeah, let�*s go for it! come on, let�*s go! let�*s do it. oh, you�*re going to get the best views from the front. you feel the force on your face, as well. right, right. there�*s a loose bolt there. should that be...? a loose bolt? hands up. eyes wide open — you don�*t want to miss it. ok, i�*ll try my best. i�*ll try my best. see if you can tell the difference... here we go! ..between the seasoned coaster and the rookie tv presenter... argh! now, i knew you wouldn�*t be able to. uptown funk by mark ronson plays what the hell?! both laugh. that was rajan becoming the first member of the public to try the red force roller—coaster. good on you, rajan! time now for a bit of high culture in amsterdam. now, i went there in 2019, 300 years on from the death of one of its most famous artists, rembrandt. in 1631, he made this city his home. and you can see many of them on display at the rijksmuseum. but what i�*ve come here to see is very special and involves a painting that rembrandt is best known for, one of the most famous works of art in the world — the night watch. the painting is almost four centuries old and, over the years, there have been various restoration attempts. but now, the museum is undertaking the most sophisticated one ever, using high—tech methods to carry out a forensic examination of how rembrandt actually painted the picture before restoration can begin. and it�*s all being carried out in one of their galleries in full view of the public and live—streamed online. oh, man! so that�*s it, the night watch. yeah. it looks incredible. and what are they doing there? the machine you see there is an x—ray fluorescence scanner and, this way, we get an idea of the elements present in this painting. but this is a painting which is for us to admire. why is it so important for you to know about the elements? because we need to figure out... yeah, we want to know how rembrandt painted it, what his ideas were when he was painting it, how did he make this nice composition? was it first all ok on the canvas, or did he change his mind and change small things, or did he change the composition? those things we would like to know. yeah, we�*re basically on rembrandt�*s shoulder and watching him while he�*s painting these paintings. but we�*re not going to do it, like, one snapshot, but we�*re going to do a lot of photos next to each other. i think, from the top of my head, it�*s 11,000 photos. wow. so then we get a really high resolution. it�*s like you�*re looking through a microscope. one pixel in that photo is like a blood cell or, basically, it�*s smaller than a hair. or, basically, it�*s smaller than a hair — a human hair. all of this scrutiny and all of this work for one artist. what do you think rembrandt would make of it if he was around today? i would personally think that he would think we are crazy. yeah, yeah. well, that feels like such a long, long time ago. let�*s hope we can all go and see the restored night watch very soon. we�*re off to denmark now, where somebody had the crazy idea of putting a dry ski slope on top of a renewable power station. cat went to check it out. fuelled by waste and billed as one of the most environmentally friendly plants of its kind, the copen hill spans more than 40,000 square metres. the slope i�*m on works its way from the bottom all the way up the side of the building and it is open for hikers, sightseers and even skiers. the ski slope is made from a slippery synthetic material that is coloured green to stop the slope from discolouring. so they are stilljust doing a little bit of work up here but, look, right over there, that�*s sweden, which is very cool. and on the other side, we have this amazing view of copenhagen. and how did you guys come up with putting a ski slope up here? one of the things we realised quite quickly is that if you take a section of the building, it actually steps down from low to high, from the area where the trucks drive in to the furnace, to the boilers, the flue gas treatment areas, all the way up to about 90 metres. and one of the other things about denmark is that danes love to ski but denmark is completely flat, so they will drive for three hours to sweden to ski on a slope that is about 80 metres high, so we quickly realised that since we have mountains of trash, apparently, we could turn it into mountains of recreation and skiing that could become a public amenity in the very centre of the city of copenhagen. sustainability tends to be this thing that is seen as a protestant act. sustainability is something you do which means that you have to do less of something and that you somehow have to have less life experience. but what we really wanted to do with this project is to express that, somehow, sustainability can be something that is positive and fun and that actually gives us more back to people and to the city. so i don�*t really know how this is going to go, or if i�*m gonna wipe out. giggles. i just want to make it down without falling over. whoa! after that initial wobble, i was soon feeling confident. maybe a bit too confident! laughs. well, that went really well. cat there in copenhagen. now, the last time we saw christa, she was driving in a citroen 2cv around the roads of paris. well, the bosses of the travel show obviously thought she had things far too easy, because we�*re going to end this weekjust on the outskirts of athens, where she has to help power a far older form of transport. moored close to the modern yachts, a different kind of ship is ready to go out to sea. the trireme olympias — the only life—sized replica in the world of the athenian battleships that dominated the naval wars from the fifth century bc until early christian times. this amazing—looking galley belongs to the greek navy and, every year, groups of very lucky people get to go aboard and actually row, just like ancient athenians did. this year, i�*m one of those lucky people, so i�*d better get ready. i think it�*s going to be quite hard work. the ship carries two small sails, but, just like in ancient times, most of the propulsion comes from the 170 oarsmen staggered over three levels under the deck. well, my fellow rowers are starting to arrive now, so i�*ve picked a plum spot, right in the middle of the action. ready for ramming speed. woman speaks greek over loudspeaker. reaching speeds of about nine knots, or 17kmh, this boat was considered pretty quick in its time... woman speaks greek over loudspeaker. ..and its manoeuvrability won athens some decisive victories at sea. the bronze ram served as the main weapon to puncture the hulls of enemy ships and to sink them. looking around, it�*s almost impossible to imagine what this must have been like for the people who originally rowed these kinds of boats. i mean, to be in battle, three layers of different people all sweating and trying to ram another boat in the open sea. i mean, it�*s unimaginable, given how pleasant and lovely this is today. well, that�*s the end of our european look—back. but, don�*t worry — there�*s lots more great stuff coming up next week. carmen�*s in fukushima, ten years after a tsunami sparked a nuclear disaster there, to meet the surfers out to reassure travellers that a decade on, it�*s safe to return. no change. yes. still safe! don�*t forget, you can watch this episode and many others again on the bbc iplayer, and you can also follow us on social media. but for now, from me, ade adepitan, and all the travel show team here in london, it�*s bye—bye. hello. to come — yes, some sunshine, but also heavy, blustery showers. all around an area of low pressure that�*s sitting to the north of us, but the tightly—packed isobars right across us indicating that wherever you are, thursday will be a very windy day. but it�*s england and wales bearing the brunt of the strongest, most disruptive winds, particularly early in the day as we see this area of wet weather move across northern england, wales, the midlands, and on towards east anglia. first thing in the day, the strongest winds will be wales, western england, gusting up to 70 mph, maybe more exposed coastal hills, especially in wales, very rough seas and large waves hitting the coastline here, so that could be disruptive in terms of flooding. and the winds across england and wales as they continue to gust, 50—60 mph, maybe a little bit more in places during the morning, could be disruptive before easing gradually into the afternoon. weather—wise, wherever you are, it is sunshine and blustery showers from heavy hail and thunder. these are your wind gusts at the end of the afternoon, so they�*re easing a bit in england and wales, but still very windy in northern ireland — in fact, the wind�*s picking up again in northwest scotland, approaching 60 mph at this stage. single figures in scotland and northern ireland, 9—12 celsius in england and wales. and it remains very blustery overnight thursday and into friday. further showers around increasingly falling as snow into the hills of scotland, perhaps northern ireland, into the pennines, as well — some here with a covering of snow at the higher ground as friday starts. and these are your temperatures. and then, for friday, spot the difference — yes, there�*ll be drier moments and sunshine, but there�*ll be further heavy showers around, some with hail and thunder, and still falling as snow into the hills of scotland, northern ireland, northern england, perhaps into wales at times, too, the higher up you are. and, ifanything, perhaps a little bit cooler on friday. and then, into the weekend, well, still low pressure. a frontal system bringing more wet weather more widely overnight and into saturday. then saturday, it�*s sunshine and showers. bit of a lull first thing sunday, but this weather system bringing more rain at least into western parts as we go on through sunday. so, a selection of locations here for your sunday weather. and then, looking into next week, well, it turns drier and calmer once again, as that march lamb makes a comeback. welcome to bbc news. i�*m mike embley. our top stories: hope as the world marks exactly a year since the pandemic was declared, with the vaccine now reaching some of the most cut—off communities. the motion is adopted. nearly $2 trillion approved by lawmakers to kick—start the us economy, with some of the money going straight into americans�* pockets. fallout continues from the oprah interview, as it�*s revealed meghan complained to itv herself about comments made by piers morgan. and bbc world news turns 30. three decades on from this channel�*s very first broadcast, we examine how television news has changed for audiences around the world.