Alexandria Day 10

20c

Whenever we talked to people about going to Egypt we were told that Alexandria was one of the places we should visit so that's where we're off to this morning. We started out at 7.30am for a 3 hours drive to Alexandria which is in the extreme north of Egypt and is the second biggest city in Egypt. It was founded by Alexander the Great in 332-331BC; hence the name Alexandria. The town has a lot of Greek influences thanks to the union of the Egyptian and Greek cultures. This is where the Great Library and museum was built but nothing now remains of either, and nor of the Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which guided people from all nations safely into port; where Queen Cleopatra first laid eyes on Julius Caesar, where Alexander the Great is supposed to be buried but the tomb has never been found, neither has the palace of Queen Cleopatra.

We first visited the ancient catacombs dating from the 2nd century AD and houses Komesh-Shuqafah's tomb. It's very different t o the catacombs of France where there are still skulls stacked upon one another, here it consists of a multi-level labyrinth, reached via a large spiral staircase and featuring dozens of chambers adorned with sculpted pillars, statues, and other Romano-Egyptian religious symbols, burial niches, as well as a large Roman-style banquet room, where memorial meals were conducted by relatives of the deceased, with the most lavish tomb being that of Komesh-Shuqafah who wasn't a pharaoh, just a wealthy person who thought he was important enough to build himself a tomb. Then we went to the Roman Theatre which was pretty good. The excavation has revealed the ancient city's well-preserved theater, and the remains of its Roma-era baths. The Greek influence can be seen quite a lot in the style of the columns, the mosaics on the ground and the decorations on the statues and sarcophaguses. There is still excavating going on here so l guess over the next few years there will be a lot more stuff found under all the dirt and rubble.

Afterwards we visited Alexandria National Museum which was ok but not fantastic. There were a lot of artifacts that had been found under water on display….coins, statues, pottery etc but a lot if it was about the Islamic influences on Egypt over the centuries. I took a few outside pics but we were not allowed to take any photos inside.

Our next stop was the Library of Alexandria, a modern building constructed between 1995 - 2002 by the Norwegian firm Snohetta and a 'must-see' tourist attraction. It is more than a library...so they say. It has museums, a planetarium, research centers, art galleries, conference centers, and becomes hosts of a number of institutions. It's a very impressive building—in the shape of a massive disc inclined toward the Mediterranean - with some great architecture. The ancient library dominated the ancient world of learning from approximately the third century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. The new one sits on the Eastern Harbor on or near the site of the original. One of the monuments out the front was found at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and one of the walls is made from gray Aswan granite and is inscribed with letters from 120 different scripts.

There is a lot of mosaic artwork on the walls around the town and the cornice area, which is 25k's long, is very nice. We didn't get a chance to take a lot of photos as we didn't get out of the car except to visit the above places so most of the pics are from the back seat of the car.

We had lunch around 3.30pm at the Four Seasons Hotel while looking out over the Mediterranean Sea which was really nice and relaxing and at around 5pm we set back to Cairo, arriving at our hotel around 8.40pm. Have just had a coffee and a chocolate….don't think we'll have tea seeing as we ate lunch so late.

We were pretty disappointed in Alexandria after hearing other travellers talk about it….we thought it was going to be different from Cairo but it is exactly the same except for the beach, just on a smaller scale. There is a tram that runs through the town which was surprising as it's not something we expected. The traffic was horrendous and the drivers just as bad, however l'm glad we made the effort to see it as it's satisfied my curiosity.