Ancient Egypt by Train with Alice Roberts

Professor Alice Roberts gets exclusive access to some of the most recently uncovered archaeology in Egypt as she travels the country by train. Starting in Alexandria, Alice goes deep underground in search of Cleopatra, she discovers how the Romans and the Greeks reacted to the treasures of Ancient Egypt and on a visit to the site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria she learns how a slave became a sultan and built his own fairy tale castle.

Professor Alice Roberts arrives in Cairo by train carrying a book she first read as a youth, "A Thousand Miles Up The Nile" by Victorian Egyptoligist Amelia Edwards. Alice follows Edwards' footsteps to the Great Pyramids and is allowed to climb deep inside to see the tomb and sarcophagus of the pharaoh Khufu. In the Great Museum Alice is besotted by Tutankhamun, in Saqqara she learns how and why the pyramids came about, and she even finds time for a spot shopping in a Cairo souk.

Having seen the treasures of Tutankhamun in a Cairo Museum Professor Alice Roberts takes the train to Luxor to see his tomb and his mummified body in the Valley of the Kings. She also takes a walk along the Avenue of the Sphinxes and catches up with an old friend who is using satellite technology to discover hundreds of new burial sites.

In Upper Egypt, Professor Alice Roberts completes her epic adventure in the city of Aswan whose quarries provided the granite for the country's vast collection of Ancient Egyptian monuments. The towns along the railway line from Luxor to Aswan each have their very own Ancient Egyptian temples, "strung out, like pearls". Alice finishes up taking a boat to see the extraordinary Philae Temple that was rebuilt in the 1970s due to flooding caused by the Aswan dam.