Alexandria – Monday 16th April

Alexandria is Egypt’s second largest city and leading port – with a population of 4.1 million, it was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC because he wanted a capital nearer to his homeland of Macedonia.  It was famed in ancient times for its Pharos, the great lighthouse, unfortunately no longer there, and its Library, the centre of knowledge for the ancient world (with 500,000 books), accidently burned down by Julius Caesar when he razed the palace next door (or so we were told).  Cleopatra lived here when she was Queen of Egypt from 51-30 BC – she and Mark Anthony committed suicide after being defeated by Octavian when Egypt came under Roman rule.  The city went into decline and by the time Napoleon captured it, it had only 5,000 inhabitants.  The French didn’t stay long, but the city appears to have flourished in the 19^th century  and came under British influence from 1882 until 1954.

View from the docks

We didn’t know anything about the city so opted for a one-day sightseeing tour.  It has a fabulous waterfront stretching for 20km, and looking out from the city it was idyllic with sandy beaches to the eastern end, a bright blue sea with rolling waves and lots of little boats offshore.  We were there on their Easter Monday (Coptic calendar calculates Easter differently) – although this is a predominantly muslim country, Easter is still a national holiday and the Monday is the day for families to go out together and enjoy themselves.  It was nice to see so many of them picnicking on the beach or in the parks and towards evening there were huge crowds on the promenade.  Everywhere we went people waved and smiled at us – some said ‘thank you’.  Our guide said that we were only the second cruise ship to come in this year and that everyone was pleased to see tourists again.  Must admit in the whole day we didn’t see anyone else who looked like a tourist.

Qait Bey Fort - on the sight of the Famous Lighthouse

Along the seafront there is a mixture of buildings – at the Western end some that are mid to late 19^th century that were once grand but now empty, and some terrible apartment blocks that are crumbling – we were told that rents are fixed for generations so many people  pay only 1 dollar a month and the owners can’t afford renovations!  Further along there are modern hotels and restaurants, but interspersed with slightly less terrible apartments and occasionally a shining beacon of a modern or renovated block.  Inside the city the story is the same, I felt quite sad looking at some beautiful buildings that seemed to be holding each other up and hanging on whilst yet more stucco fell to the ground  and balconies collapsed,  in the hope that a renovation might be forthcoming, but given the state of the economy I am not too hopeful.  On our tour we did of course visit some of the best sites…

Montazah Palace

First the Montazah Palace and gardens  - this was the summer residence  of King Farouk until he was deposed in 1952 and it is now used by the presidents.  The gardens are open to the public and were full of picnicking families. Nearby is a 5 star hotel built in the 1960s to provide accommodation for the Arab states and Israelis during peace talks. 

Next we visited the new library - Bibliotecha Alexandrina, built in 2002, with a UNESCO grant and Egyptian money, on the same site as the original – about 2300 years later.  It has a fabulous design and represents the sun with the earth (a planetarium) at its side – unfortunately we don’t have a photo.  The interior is equally impressive with hundreds of stations, all equipped with free internet.  They pride themselves on their multimedia collection – they have masses of books online and many of them are available for free download – including Napoleon’s Description of Egypt (many volumes of superb drawings of all of the antiquities which he commissioned in his brief stay from 1798 to about 1800).  We also saw a super 9-screen interactive ‘Culturama’ demonstration which depicts the history of Egypt and allows exploration of many of the monuments – would be fabulous to use if you were planning  a tour of Egypt.

Roman Theatre

We stopped at a restaurant for a very acceptable lunch before visiting the National Museum of Cairo which occupies the house once belonging to Omar Sharif’s family.  Amongst a selection of antiquities it had some artefacts rescued from the sunken palace of Cleopatra which is in the bay – it was destroyed by an earthquake.  There are plans to retrieve more and also to set up a tourist attraction allowing visits by glass-bottomed boats.

National Museum

Our next stop was the Roman amphitheatre which is still being excavated –  the site also includes a bath-house and other buildings. 

The most exciting visit was the last – the Catacombs of Ko el-Shogafa.  I was expecting some tunnels and a few holes in the wall with maybe some bones but this is so much more.  A spiral stairway leads down 99 steps to a magnificent Egyptian tomb (first century AD) complete with carved pillars and reliefs on the walls, plus some wall paintings (though damp has destroyed most of them).  It is thought that it was built as a single family crypt but then expanded for public use, and about 300 burying chambers have been uncovered so far.  There is a whole lower level that is under water and more tunnels have been discovered quite recently  The catacombs were first discovered when a donkey fell down a hole in 1900 – they are obviously taking their time with the excavations.

The catacombs are in one of the poorest parts of the city and as the traffic was very bad we had plenty of time to view the streets from the luxury of our coach windows.  It did feel a bit uncomfortable being a voyeur but even in this poor area people were smiling and waving at us.

The coach drove through streets like this

Alexandria has definitely got something to offer the explorer, but probably not as a Mediterranean holiday destination  - particularly if they don’t clear up the rubbish which was almost everywhere.  Quite a few people from the ship said they walked to the port gate, took one look  at the rubbish-strewn road and went back to the ship!