Alexandria

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Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast was once considered one of the greatest cities in the world. Today it receives remarks as "greatest historical city, but with the least to show for it" (Lonely Planet) or "It looks like a pockmarked Cannes" (Michael Palin).

That's not untrue but doesn't do it justice. We had a great time there. The city has a great museum which explain the history of Alexandria from when it was founded in 332 BC by Alexander the great (remember the guy who went to the Siwa oasis) over the days when it was nearly forgotten and in ruins to its resurrection to what it is today. It is true that there is hardly anything left of what Alexandria is famous for. It once had a massive lighthouse which is one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World and of course the famous Library of Alexandria. Time hasn't been good to those places. The lighthouse fell victim to a earthquake and the library was ransacked and burned a few times. The remains of the library together with most of the old Alexandria are now even a couple of meters underwater. For some reason most of old Alexandria sunk below sea level (or the water rose) and is now slowly being rediscovered by divers.
The lighthouse fared slightly better and at least the base was reused as part of a fort which stands now at it's place.

The library was rebuilt albeit in a very modern form and a close but different location. The new library is an impressive site. It was built as disc lodged into earth and symbolises the rising sun. The exterior of the library is adorned with symbols from all the known 120 alphabets of this world. The inside boasts space for 8 million books and space for 8000 people. Truly amazing stuff. For all the geeks out there it worth checking out the libraries website http://www.bibalex.org/English/index.aspx as the library keeps a copy of all (so they claim) websites since 1996!

Apart from that there are Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa which are in the all important "Wonders of the Medieval World list". They have been build around the time the Romans were in Egypt. It is believed that they were initially build as burial place for just one family but others caught on to the idea and extended the catacombs over the years to what is now a maze.
They are said to be the largest Roman catacombs in Egypt and its easy to see why. The catacombs go down three storeys! They were discovered by accident when a donkey fell into the shaft through which the bodies were lowered. No record can be found of what happened to the donkey.

The fort of Alexandria is a very beautiful building at a great place directly at the mouth of the harbour but what's even better is that its in the vicinity of the Greek club. Alexandria had a thriving European community before the revolution in the 1950 after which they got kicked out. One of the remnants is the Greek club which overlooks the harbour of Alexandria, has great taramasalata and server icy cold beer. Finding beer in Islamic Egypt is possible but not an easy feat so every opportunity must be savoured. Saying that my liver is quite happy and very healthy these days.

Another health boost comes from what I would consider the best fruit juice store in the world. It is not hard to find as it is on the Concourse and is adorned with bags and bags of fruit. The mango juice is fantastic and cannot be compared to anything we get at home. The juice is simply ripe mango flesh put in a mixer and blended slightly. That's it. I don't want to go into describing the strawberry juice as it still hurts me to think that I wont have it again.

One of the more bizarre things in Alexandria was or TV in our hotel. Now I should say before going into details that we didn't stay in the red light district (doubt there is one) and we didn't have to pay for the room by the hour. For some reason or other our hotel thought that good service includes to show porn on TV from about 9pm onwards. I don't want to go into details (even denying ever watching this 😉 but it was a toned down and I guess Islamic version of porn with lots of noise but nothing could be seen.

To extend the list of transport methods used during our trip we even managed to hop onto one of the aging trams and make a horse cart driver happy by paying him too much for a horse cart ride. Cant wait to write a list of all modes of transport used and I bet you are keen to see it 😉

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Photos

Cats a constant feature of every Egyptian city
Gotta love Egypt for that alone

Old coffe shop
Unfortunately the shop looks better than the coffee tastes

Strawberry juice!!! and Fruit salat
I don't even try to tell you how great it tasted. Don't think there is an appropriate word for it!

Library of Alexandria
has space for 8 million books and 800 readers

Fort
Built on the ruins of the great lighthouse

View of the Cornice
Runs all the way along Alexandria

patisserie
What I would call paradise