Ancient Greece by Train with Alice Roberts

Alice is in the Penteli hills in Athens, at a site known as the Sanctuary of Dionysus, the god of wine. Local legend has it that on a night of drink and revelry a man called Thespis created what we now know as theatre. His name is still used today, with the thespians synonym for actors. Local expert Nike, who's spent years researching the origins of theatre, tells Alice that theatre also laid the foundation stones for the birth of democracy. And in a surprise invitation to meet the Greek Minister of Culture, Alice discusses the return of the Elgin Marbles. 

Alice's train odyssey takes her from Athens and across the Corinth Canal to Corinth, where her guide, Socrates, takes her to an archaeological dig. She tracks down the precise place where St Paul stood to preach Christianity to the masses on his Greek pilgrimage. From Corinth she heads to Piraeus to meet an expert called Aristotle, who has a theory on the value of the ideas of the Ancient Greeks to our modern situation. After learning about sea battles between the Greeks and the Romans, Alice takes a ferry to the historic island of Paros in the Cyclades.

On the island of Paros, in the middle of the Aegean Sea, Alice meets an incredible archaeologist called Yannos. They go on a tour of the ancient sites he's discovered in 38 years of digging. Alice takes a boat to the stunning island of Delos where the Temple of Apollo once stood, and where thousands of tourists visit each week to see the island's incredible ancient remains. And Alice leaves Greece behind to go to Türkiye where Ancient Greece was once the prevalent culture. 

In this final episode, Professor Alice Roberts is back on the train and learning more about the Ancient Greek culture that thrived in Türkiye over 2000 years ago. From the Aegean port of Kusadasi, Alice goes to the spectacular and beautifully preserved city of Ephesus. Later, she encounters an important historic rock carving, from an empire before the Greeks, that's recently been vandalised. Alice visits an old friend at the acropolis of Pergamon, then scrutinises an expert on Troy to test the veracity of the ancient stories of Homer in The Iliad, as she completes her own personal odyssey.