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Egypt
September 2003
A three week journey around Egypt. I wrote a full account of the trip, to record both the memories I want to keep and the historic facts I want to remember.

Part 7: Alexandria
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Alexandria
History
Alexandria was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great after his conquest of Egypt. He soon went off to conquer the rest of the known world as well, but when he died in 323 BC his body was brought back here to be buried. The exact location of his tomb is not known anymore though.

When Alexander's general Ptolemy made himself the king of Egypt, Alexandria became its capital. During the next three centuries it prospered and became the leading cultural centre of the Mediterranean world, known especially for its Great Library, its Mouseion (a scientific institute) and its Lighthouse, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

After the Roman conquest of Egypt in 31 BC, things went downhill. First the Romans massacred the christians, later the christians massacred the remaining pagans and destroyed their temples and monuments. Then the Arabs invaded and founded Cairo as the new capital of Egypt. The great lighthouse survived all this but was ruined by an earth quake in 1303.

By 1800, Alexandria was just a small village with 5000 inhabitants, but in the 19th century it grew into a big city again. In the 1st half of the 20th century it was known for its cosmopolitan nature, having large Greek, Jewish, French and English communities, but the revolution of 1952 caused an exodus of foreigners. Today Alexandria is an all-Egyptian town with 5 million inhabitants.

Arrival and Meeting
After a 10 hour bus ride from Hurghada, I arrived in Alexandria at midnight and took a taxi to my hotel. Salma had arranged it for me, and I immediately appreciated her choice: what a view!
I tried to get Salma on the phone but nothing worked, so I went outside to shop and to look for an internet cafe. I immediately liked Alexandria: noone bothered me on the street, and in the shops people spoke Arabic to me. I like not being treated as a tourist!

When I finally got in touch with Salma, she said she'd send "something to eat" to my hotel, since I must be hungry after the long bus trip. At 1:30am, a Pizza Hut guy arrived holding a big pile of boxes. He delivered: a vegetarian pizza, a sea food pizza, a box of garlic bread and a huge box of salad. Salma hadn't been sure what I liked so she'd just ordered everything without meat :)

The next morning Salma picked me up at my hotel. After the happy meeting we went to a nice tearoom to have breakfast (I was to be fed well in Alexandria), and then we started our frantic tour of Alexandria's monuments. We got around fast since Salma had rented a taxi for the whole day.

The Fort of Qaitbey
In 1480, the Mameluke sultan Qaitbey cleared the ruins of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which had been ruined by an earth quake in 1303 when it was already over 1500 years old, and on its foundations he built a fort. This fort was bombarded by the British in 1882 when the Egyptians revolted against their rule, but it was later rebuilt.

The Mosque of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi
This mosque, the biggest in Alexandria, was built in 1775 over the tomb of the 13th century Andalusan saint Ahmed Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi, and was expanded in 1943. It was hard to get good pictures of it because of the buildings, trees and traffic around it.


Lunch and Various Views
For lunch we went to the Windsor Castle Hotel, where I had pasta with salmon, yum. Once our bellies were full we took off again. Here are some pictures of various places.

Kom al-Dikka
Kom al-Dikka means "the rubble yard". It's what archaeologists have managed to restore of the Panion, the park of Pan, a Greek-Roman pleasure garden. Besides a relatively intact Roman theatre, there are remains of bath houses and a villa. Sadly this area is pretty much all that's left above the ground of the ancient Alexandria that was on par with Rome and Athens.


The Catacombs of Kom al-Shuqafa
This underground Roman burial site was accidentally discovered in 1900 when a donkey fell in a hole in the ground. It was cut out of rock in the 2nd century AD, to a depth of 35 meter. It was probably a family crypt at first, but got expanded until it had three levels and could accomodate over 300 corpses. It includes a banqueting hall where relatives could hold funeral feasts.

The Library
The Library of Alexandria was the largest of the ancient world. In the 3rd century BC it already counted over half a million volumes. Fires, civil wars and christian zealotry had destroyed it all by the 5th century AD. Last year, a new high-tech library was opened that seeks to carry on the universal spirit of the old library, and it's a remarkable piece of architecture.


Inside the library we visited an exposition of ancient statues and artefacts that were recovered from the building site. Most remarkable was a mosaic of a dog that looked so modern in style that it was hard to believe it was made 2000 years ago.

The Montaza Palace
Abbas Hilmy II, the khedive of Egypt from 1892 to 1914, built a palace with a huge park around it for himself at Montaza. It is now a presidential palace. I'd never heard about it but Salma had been there for a fancy party once and wanted to show it to me, and I loved it right away! It looks very fairy-tale-ish with its mix of Morish and Italian styles.
When we returned from the palace our driver had run off to go pray in a nearby mosque, so we had a drink in a hotel before driving back.

Dinner
In the evening Salma and I had dinner in a fish restaurant with her father. They ganged up against me and made me eat four complete fish! They were delicious though, and after this one day in Alex I wouldn't have to eat anymore for the remainder of my trip. Someone made a pic of us but I look so silly on it that I have to censor it :) See below for another picture of us though.

After a nice evening I got a taxi back to my hotel, but the driver couldn't find it. To add to the fun, he didn't speak a single word of English. He spoke Arabic slowly though, a nice gesture. After much driving back and forth across the Corniche I finally spotted the right hotel, phew.

Train station
The next morning I went back to Cairo. Salma was coming with me; we'd go visit the pyramids of Gizeh together. While waiting for the train (alone because Salma would get on our train in the previous station) I saw the most amusing scene... (read the picture comments).


Hilariously, the train in front of me departed first after all, so all the people jumped off the train behind me again, jumped on the track in front of me and started running after the train. Some of them actually managed to climb on it. All this time I kept picturing a TGV driving through the station at full speed, as I've seen so often in Brussels North :)


Cairo
In Cairo we first went to my hotel to drop off my luggage, and then drove on to Gizeh. I'd already been there with the group on my 2nd day in Egypt, but time had been so short then that it had been disappointing. I wanted to go back and take my time to walk around and really suck in the sight of these monuments, and have some fun photographing them.

This time I got to spend the whole afternoon there, and we also went inside the Great Pyramid which was a great experience. I've already told about all this and shown my pyramid pictures in part 2 of this report. Here are some pictures of ourselves though.

In the evening we had a drink in the Nile Hilton, after which it was time to say goodbye to Salma and her father who were taking a train back to Alexandria. They'd spoilt me terribly for two days!
It was kind of funny to walk straight from the Hilton to my budget hotel on the other side of the same square. An hour later the group arrived from Sinai, and Danny and I exchanged stories. This was our last night in Egypt; I'll tell about the final day of the trip in the last part of this report.


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