The £8m Arsenal striker with a well-known fear of flying has in recent seasons managed to avoid selection for most of his team's away European ties.

But with the north London side still reeling from a crushing 3-1 defeat at the hands of Dynamo Kiev in the Champion's League, drastic measures may be necessary to ensure a place in the next round.

Manager Arsene Wenger had toyed with despatching Bergkamp on a 40-hour train journey to the Ukraine tie, but backed down at the last minute.

But if the reigning English league and FA Cup champions fare poorly against Lens, at Wembley, Wenger may be left with little option but to play Bergkamp in the 9 December clash against Greek side Panathinaikos, in Athens!

With air travel a big no, no, BBC News Online would like to suggest some alternative modes of transport.

It's not exactly high season, but Bergkamp may feel tempted to travel Summer Holiday-style in a red double-decker London bus.

Sounds crazy? Well, Cliff Richard managed it almost 40 years ago in the film Summer Holiday, and the roads are bound to have improved since then.

Unfortunately, it's bound to be a bit of a bone-rattler and may deliver the Dennis in less-then top-notch condition.

By now a seasoned Londoner, Bergkamp should be well used to the capital's Underground system (although his £1m a year salary suggests that might not be true).

Although east-bound services seem to stop around Epping, has anyone ever asked for a Travelcard for zones one to 548.

It wouldn't even burn much a hole in his pocket. With the average passenger mile calculated at 22.2p - according to London Transport - the full 1,486-mile trip would be a mere £329.89.

Getting to the Greek capital on conventional train services is more of a certainty, although it will take the best part of a day and a half , without all the waiting.

According to Rail Europe, Bergkamp's best option would be to take the Eurostar to Paris (three hours), pick up an overnight service to Bologna (10 hours), before catching the connection to Brindisi (seven hours) on the heel of Italy.

Then it's a 14 hour ferry journey to Patra before the final couple of hours to Athens. Total price? £378 return - that's £299 for an Inter-rail ticket and £79 for the Eurostar.

Of course money is no object for the Dutch goal machine, so he could probably stump up the estimated £6,617 return fare charged by a London cab.

The figure is meticulously calculated taking into account the total road distance of 1,445 miles, which would be mostly charged at 20p per 154 metres, and includes waiting time - 20p per 34 seconds - on the ferry and two hours for the game itself.

Former cabbie John Thomas, now of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, wisely points out that if he was carrying extra kit or a pair of goal posts there's a one-off charge of 20p per item.

One way to make up for valuable lost training time would be for Bergkamp to exercise his feet on the pedals of his own car.

The AA recommends a scenic route from Calais across to Strasbourg in eastern France, into Germany and south towards Basel in Switzerland. Then it's through the Alps, south to Parma in Italy, past Rimini on the coast and onwards to Brindisi to pick up the ferry.

"We used to recommend a ferry to the old Yugoslavia but that's a bit dangerous," says a spokesman for the organisation.

Total driving time would be about 24 hours, without any rest stops- not recommended at all.

However, if it's speed and efficiency Bergkamp wants, none of the options come close to air travel. Although, his spirits might have been lifted slightly by recent news that scientists in California performed the first simple exercise in teleportation. They managed to teleport a photon of light using a process called "entanglement"