Alice Roberts takes her final train trip around Ancient Egypt

If you’ve ever daydreamed about exploring the wonders of ancient Egypt, maybe you’ve pictured yourself riding a camel through the desert, or maybe even taking a cruise along the Nile (preferably without an Agatha Christie-style murder to disrupt your trip).

However, Ancient Egypt by Train with Alice Roberts has been making a good case for seeing the country by train. As the presenter and anthropologist told What to Watch: “It’s just a great way to get around. It’s much better than flying or driving as you get to sit back and appreciate the landscape, which was just beautiful.

“You’ve got the green, lush, fertile strip which is the flood plains of the Nile, running by the rail track, and then the amazing contrast of arid desert as you get down to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.”

She added: “The train was tiring but they were clean, comfy and on time, which was nice!”

The series has also been a great chance for her to fulfil her childhood dream of seeing Egypt. Speaking to What to Watch, she says: “I grew up in north Bristol and remember being at St Mary’s Church in Henbury, looking at the crosses and angels in the graveyard, and noticing a grave marked with an obelisk and stone ankh – the Egyptian symbol of eternal life.

“It was the grave of Amelia Edwards, a pioneering Egyptologist who [after touring Egypt in the late 19th century] wrote a fantastic book called A Thousand Miles Up the Nile. It sparked my interest in Egypt and after reading her book I knew I wanted to travel in her footsteps.”

Over the past three episodes, Alice has done just that. Her adventure began in Alexandria, where she went in search of Cleopatra, and learned more about how the ancient Greeks and Roman’s reacted to Egypt’s wonders.

From there, she went on to Cairo, armed with the book by the aforementioned Amelia Edwards and ready to explore the Great Pyramids, while the third episode took her to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

This week, her journey comes to an end as her final rail trip takes her to upper Egypt and the city of Aswan, which played a key role in the creation of the country’s ancient monuments – its quarries supplied the granite that built them.

The railway journey proves to be pretty impressive in its own right, as Alice discovers that the towns along the line from Luxor to Aswan each have their very own ancient temple, which she describes as being ‘strung out, like pearls on a string’.

However, once she alights, it’s time for Alice to swap the train for a boat as she sees the extraordinary Philae Temple that was rebuilt in the 1970s due to flooding caused by the Aswan dam.