Palin accepts the offer from the BBC to attempt travelling around the world in 80 days. After setting off from the Reform Club in London, he boards 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.