Our first wakeup in Egypt was a bit surreal: from the window of our hotel room, we could see the tops of the pyramids at Giza. I was unfortunately still exhausted from our previous day of travel, but Richard was up early and watched the sunrise over the desert.
We had a quick breakfast at the hotel before meeting up with the rest of our group, and our guide, both of whom had already been in Egypt for 5 days before us.
Driving into Alexandria (about 2.5 hours from Cairo) gave me my first real glimpses into what Egypt was really like, from a “built environment” standpoint. I had seen some of Cairo the night before on our drive from the airport, but I was so tired at the time that it was hazy and dreamlike. For our drive to Alexandria, I was completely awake, and it was kind of my first moment of “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore”.
As we got further into Alexandria, I got an even more in-depth, sensory experience of what an Egyptian city is like. Alexandria isn’t really a spot most tourists go, so we were surrounded by true Egyptian life, which is something I was really glad to get to experience. Unfortunately, this was one day where I only really had my cell phone camera, but I still really like the shots of street life that I was able to get, even though I was shooting from our van most of the time.
Our first stop in Alexandria was the Alexandrian Catacombs – a series of hundreds of underground tombs discovered in the last 50 years or so, when a donkey cart suddenly fell through a sinkhole that opened up in the ground beneath it. Inside is a pretty spectacular set of examples of the mingling of Greek and Egyptian culture toward the end of the age of pharaohs, including carvings of Anubis in a clearly Greek, very dynamic form.
Our next stop was Pompey’s pillar, the only remaining piece of the Serapium which once stood in the Agora of Alexandria. If you saw the film “Agora” that came out a few years back, you saw what this once was.
Our third stop for the day was the Roman amphitheater near the center of the city. The site is fairly extensive and has literally layers of history that have been unearthed only recently (the site was discovered during construction), including a worker’s village, a set of Roman baths, and a beautiful bird-themed floor mosaic in one of the houses. The amphitheater itself isn’t large, but has an unusual characteristic of that when you stand in one spot and speak normally, your voice is bounced and amplified in such a way that it sounds like you’re listening to yourself on a pair of studio headphones. Also, there were cats everywhere.
After that, we grabbed some really incredibly tasty Egyptian falefel (made with fava beans instead of chickpeas) from a local restaurant to eat in the car on the way to the Alexandrian museum. Once again, driving through the city was fascinating.
The ruins of the ancient library of Alexandria are long gone, but the Egyptian government has decided to build a brand new, state of the art library near where the original is thought to have stood. It is truly an incredible facility, with the largest open reading room in the world, one of the largest collections of braille books in the world (in a special collection), an original Heidelberg Press, and many other really incredible things. When you buy a ticket to the museum, it also gets you free access to their online lending library for an entire year! If you’re going to Alexandria, I definitely recommend visiting. Our tour guide was an incredibly articulate female high school student who was studying to go to university in the UK.
After the library was more driving. This whole day was kind of surreal and dreamlike because I was badly jetlagged, but it was really fascinating to get to see how organic the traffic in Egypt is – lanes and other traffic control methods are treated as mere suggestions, and pedestrians, horse carts, and mopeds all flow together with the cars, trams, etc. It was a joy to watch.
After the Library of Alexandria, Arafa took us to grab some Egyptian ice cream from a local shop. It was surprisingly chewy and stretchy, and I have since learned that it is known in culinary circles as “Levantine” ice cream. It was excellent and I highly recommend trying it if you visit. Sitting out in the esplanade while the sea breeze blew in off the coast was a pretty nice way to spend half an hour.
After the ice cream, and freshly renewed, we headed over to the coastline to see the fortress that was built during the early Islamic period in Egypt using some of the ruins from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which it was built upon. We also took some time to watch the boats on the harbor.
Our final stop for the day was at the site where Hypatia, the famous female teacher, academic, and general badass of ancient Alexandria is thought to have been killed, shortly after the destruction of the library of Alexandria. While there we crossed the street to walk along the seawall and enjoy the beautiful sunset. It was a really nice, quiet end to a great day.
Next up, Cairo!