Al Iskandreya

Last Thursday*, a group of nine AUC students set out on the Turbo Train bound from Cairo to Alexandria. Once again confused by Egypt, we landed in the wrong station in Alexandria. This lead to a fair amount of confusion, arguing with over-zealous taxi drivers, a man insisting that I spoke Arabic, and finally a crazy taxi cab ride/race to The New Hotel Welcome House.

The New Hotel Welcome House. That would be the name of our lovely hostel. Although, for 25 LE/night, lovely probably isn't the best adjective to describe The New Hotel Welcome House. Adequate might be better; however, none of us were able to shower for the length of the trip, so adequate may yet be insufficient. Anyway, it was a place to sleep, and had a great view. After taking care of all the arrival business - "checking in", paying, and causing a small rucous in moving beds to different rooms - we took on city of Alexandria.

Alexandria is located in north central Egypt, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It was founded by Alexander the Great and served as Egypt's capital for almost 1000 years. As with pretty much everywhere in Egypt, Alexandria is full of history. Visited sites include: The catacombs of Kom al-Shoqafa, Pompey's Pillar, the Library of Alexandria, Fort Qaitbey (possible site of the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria), Al-Anfushi, and Al Montaza.

The Library of Alexandria and Fort Qaitbey are two things of greatest historical note. Alexandria was once known to have the largest library in the world, known then as the Bibliotec Alexandria (or some more correct spelling of 'bibliotec'). The library was built probably during the 3rd century BC, and its date of demolition is debatable. Today, a different building sits along the coast of the Mediterranean and claims the name "The Library of Alexandria". This modern structure houses a library (duh), two museums, and a Death Star... I mean, planetarium. Unfortunately, we visited Alexandria on a Ramadan weekend, and, as our timing would just so have it, we never made it to the Library before the early Ramadan closing time.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was likewise build during the 3rd century BC. It was located in the eastern bay of Alexandria, on the island of Pharos, right off the coast. Listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the tallest man-made structures of its time, shadowed only by the two tallest pyramids. Today, Fort Qaitbey stands where the Lighthouse may have once stood. It may even be partially constructed with some of the remains of the Lighthouse. Again, we didn't time things so well, and arrived after closing, so we did not get to tour the Fort. Instead, we spent some time hanging out alongside the Mediterranean.

The other sites were great to see also. The catacombs are (hopefully) self-explanatory by name. Pompey's Pillar is a site of Roman ruins, which were SO COOL. I got some nice pictures, and am working on setting up a flickr site or something so that I can upload all of my pictures. Al-Anfushi is pretty much a little bay area that was just kind of fun to bum around. And Al Montaza is the site of a palace, which is inaccessable. But the are around the palace has been transformed into a gigantic garden/park area that is, of course, right along the sea. We spent a few hours wandering around there.

On the train ride back to Cairo (now in my mind "home), we had a first semi-scary tourist incident. Apparently we had chosen a busy weekend to travel to Alexandria, and there were a lot of other Americans on the train back to Cairo. The tourist police thought it would be a good idea to gather all of the Americans in one of the train cars. They really only meant to make us comfortable, by surrounding us with other Americans, but that's not what was going through our minds. This plan turned out to be much more confusing that it was intended to be, because we all had to move to our originally assigned seats at the next stop. Needless to say, I'm safe, and the happening on the train was inconsequential.


*This post was started a long time ago. So, "last Thursday" means like two weeks ago.