ALEXANDER
aka: the great. There is no need for any more.
ROLE Conquerer of a vast empire that stretched from Macedonia to Egypt, Greece to India.
RIDE On Bucephalus by horse I prefer longer rides...
RELAX Feasting, drinking preferably as much as possible of both in conquered palaces across Asia.
REFRESHMENT Undiluted wine! Rare in these days, most mix with water, I like it straight and it probably killed me!
READ Homer of course, often read to me by Aristotle my teacher.
Who was Alexander the Great?
Alexander III of Macedon was born at Pella in 356 BC, was taught by Aristotle, and became king at twenty. In 334 BC he crossed into Asia with around 40,000 men and never came home. He beat the Persians at the Granicus, at Issus and at Gaugamela, took Tyre after a seven-month siege, was welcomed into Egypt as a liberator and founded Alexandria on its coast. By the time he died in Babylon in 323 BC, aged 32, he had marched as far as India and had never lost a battle.
Our Alexander bike tour starts where he did. From Thessaloniki we ride inland to Pella, his birthplace, and on to Vergina and the royal tombs of the Macedonian kings, including his father Philip II. Then it is Turkey's Lycian coast by bike and gulet - Xanthos, Myra, Kekova - before Egypt, the land that hailed him as pharaoh, and a finish in Cairo beneath the Pyramids of Giza.
Read more: From Mt Olympus to Cairo - The Real Campaigns of Alexander the Great.