the Orient Express at Victoria Station in London, while reminiscing on his rigorous preparations for his upcoming circumnavigation, which included a daily exercise programme, a chat with seasoned TV traveller Alan Whicker, who was the BBC's (but not the production team's, who deliberately talked him out of it) first choice for the series and would go on to criticise the show, calling it "a seven-hour ego trip", and the purchase of an inflatable globe. He also has dinner with his 'referees', who include Robert Hewison and fellow Pythons Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. After taking a ferry across the English Channel, Palin crosses the Alps on board the Venice-Simplon Orient Express before being stopped in Innsbruck due to an Italian railway strike. Arriving in Venice by coach, he helps the local sanitation department clean up the city. After that, he travels through the Corinth Canal to Athens, where he sees the world-renowned Evzones, and meets a die-hard Python fan. After a brief stopover in Crete, Alexandria beckons. Sections: Outward Bound Preparations The Ultimate Traveller Orient Express Bad News Venice Travelling by Ferry An Evening Meal Arabian Frights Palin arrives in Alexandria, Egypt, and has difficulty getting a train to Cairo. On arrival, he attends a local football match and appears in a cameo role in an Egyptian film. After seeing the Pyramids in Giza and riding a camel named Michael, Palin runs into difficulties when the ship he was supposed to board has engine problems and cannot sail. Even though he is able to take a ferry from the city of Suez to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, he misses a key connection that would have taken him to Muscat. As a last-ditch effort to save the journey, Palin and the director Clem Vallance (and somebody from the British Embassy and a driver for some of the way) are permitted by the Saudi authorities to drive across Saudi Arabia to Dubai, with the rest of the crew (and their problematic camera equipment) making the journey by air. The Saudi Arabia leg of the trip is represented in the TV series only with a few still pictures taken along the way. Sections: Arabian Frights The Road to Cairo A Closer Look An Appointment to Keep Problems At Sea Jeddah A Plan Ancient Mariners Palin recounts his trip from Jeddah to Dubai via Riyadh, and notes that he drove the distance from London to