City Post: Alexandria

Jo and I split up on December 1st. I had a good laugh at her time getting out of Egypt. She hadn't really traveled solo before, and she decided to start at the Cairo International Airport and fly to Aqaba, Jordan, while the conflict in Gaza was in full swing. Well, might as well jump in feet first!

While she was living it up in Aqaba diving the Red Sea for a few days, I boarded a bus to Alexandria. It was December, I was in the Middle East, and it was hot. Talk about my scene! Sure, I looked like a Western backpacker walking to the bus station with my pack and hat, but I didn't care. I was solo in the dessert and looking forward to what craziness may lie ahead in this new chapter in The Great Gallivanting.

I decided to go to Alexandria, because, well, it was Alexandria! The Great Library was here, Alexander the Great was its namesake, and there was plenty of Greek meets Roman meets Egyptian history and archaeology there. I didn't really have a plan; what I had was a bus ticket and three days, and that was a good enough starting point.

Funnily enough, I wasn't the only person headed to Alexandria that day. Jo and I had met several people at the hostel in Cairo the night before, and we all split up that morning. None of us had discussed our plans with each other, but apparently we all had the same one, because before I knew it the hostel was full of people I knew! Talk about cool.

I ended up hanging out with a guy named Alexander the first day there. Naturally, we headed to the Library of Alexander so we could take a picture of Alexander reading a book about Alexander in Alexandria at the Library of Alexandria. Of course, it wasn't the original Library of Alexandria. That one burned down centuries upon centuries ago. This was the modern Library of Alexandria, and it was HUGE. It had a substantial book selection in many, many different languages (which would explain why there were so many university students there).

While Alexander read the book on Alexander, I perused the museums they had inside. They weren't big museums, but they were still worth visiting. One contained Greek and Roman sculptures, another was a rare book collection, and another was a picture gallery of paintings and sketchings. Personally, I didn't realise that there was so much overlap of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian history, so this was a cool eye-opener for me.

Afterwards, Alexander and I had some koshary at a place I went to the night before before he headed off with a friend he'd met and I went back for a nap at the hostel.

The next day, I went to a couple of archaeological sites. Even though Uber was everywhere in Egypt, I decided to put it in two-foot drive to go see them. I have always liked exploring cities by wandering the neighbourhoods, and Alexandria was no different. Once I got a few streets off the main ocean road, it was clear I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Little school kids stared in awe at this Westerner and his brown fedora as he walked by them in the streets. The older kids were all quick to yell "hello!," to which I gave my customary "G'day, g'day" (something I picked up in the U.S. Virgin Islands, not Australia).

The first site I came to was the catacombs. The site itself wasn't big, or really that impressive for someone not interested in archaeology or history, but I found it pretty cool. Essentially, the catacombs were an underground burial site which had multiple floors of tombs carved into the rock, accessed via a spiral staircase. Seemed a bit cliché to me, but also kind of Indiana Jones-y, so it canceled out.

Inside, there were no signs describing anything. Unless you knew what you were looking at, you really was just there for the "oos" and "ahs" of being in an ancient burial site. Some of the tombs were clearly for important people; others were for us laypeople. The dead giveaway was whether or not they were in large rooms or individual sites.

After the catacombs, I headed to Pompey's Pillar. I, like apparently most people, thought it had some sort of connection to the lost Roman city, but I, like most people, was wrong (had I looked at the spelling, that might have been an indicator). The pillar was established to honour Diocletian, a Roman emperor. The name "Pompey" came from a mis-reading of the inscription at its base that stuck. This pillar was the only remaining part of the ancient city of Alexandria which was in its original place.

The pillar was built at the Serapeum of Alexandria, an unrelated Greek temple dedicated to Serapis, the Greek god who was the protector of Alexandria. Like the catacombs, the site itself was unimpressive as far as tourist attractions go, but it, again, was a cool archaeological site. (Something I'd learned in Egypt was I was going to have to learn to appreciate archaeology if I was going to continue traveling the Middle East).

That night, I headed to the Citadel of Qaitbay. Again, I put it in two-foot drive to get there, so I got to take in the sea walk at night. Some fish shops, a few beachside restaurants (for what passed for a beach in the city), and a whole lot of honking cars blowing fumes lined my path. It was only about a 20 minute walk, so it wasn't too bad.

The Citadel was extremely well-preserved when compared to the other sites I had seen. My estimation was that it was kept in good repair because it was in such a prominent place. Outside of it, peddlers set up their tents to sell trinkets and souvenirs to tourists. Once you were inside, you could explore the walls, the underground batteries, and the citadel itself, which was centrally built around the prayer room. I got several cool pictures being there at sunset, and the Egyptian police on site seemed to genuinely want to be helpful to tourists, which was something I was definitely not accustomed to.

Inside, there wasn't much left. It was essentially a large, empty fort, but there were a couple of cool points. Firstly, the prayer room, whose atrium extended to the top floor, was still off limits out of respect for its purpose. You could look through the portholes into it, but going in was not allowed. Secondly, there was a murder hole that you could look through on the second floor (for the uninitiated, a murder hole was basically a hole in the ceiling leading to the floor above through which defenders could shoot arrows, throw objects, or even pour acid through to attack invaders).

One thing that struck me at this site was related to modernity: they didn't accept cash. I watched as they turned away patrons who didn't have a credit or debit card. I found this would be the case at many museums and archaeology sites in Egypt. In a country where nowhere had credit card machines, I had become accustomed to only paying cash. Luckily, I had one credit card on me I could pay with to get in. Lesson learned for the future.

The next day, I had intended to go to the Graeco-Roman Museum (on Alexander's recommendation), but it was FULL of elementary school kids on field trips, so I opted not to go in. I couldn't help but think how cool it must be, though, to be able to take a field trip to some of these places that Westerners have to take vacation to go see. I had also noticed that, in many places, they walked there from the school. I couldn't imagine seeing that where I was from in the States. For one, everything was far away, because most of the country was established after the invention of the car. More importantly, it was (and is) such a foreign concept to Americans to just let their teachers take them on a walk through a city to get to the field trip site.

In any case, that meant that I didn't do much that day. I opted to just walk around the city, and ended up at the Roman Theatre. I had lunch right outside at a fried chicken place that was absolutely fantasmic. Amazing what fresh ingredients and made-to-order could do for food.

The Roman Theatre complex was decently well-preserved, unlike the other sites. It was more than just the theatre, which was actually a pretty small part of the entire site. There were bath houses, classrooms, villas, and even a small gallery of Roman mosaics. You couldn't walk all over the site like you could at others, which I liked from a preservation perspective. This site also had a few more explainer signs so you could better understand the site.

By this point in Alexandria, everyone I had met in Cairo had moved on, so it was really just me on my own. I had an early bus the last morning, so I packed my stuff and turned in early.

Something of note about the bus between Cairo and Alexandria that I learned: like much of Egypt, it was an economy subsidized by Western tourists. Your ticket included checked baggage, but that didn't mean there wasn't a hidden cost. The baggage handlers wanted tips from Westerners (but notably not locals). They would straight up ask you for a tip, even though all they did was move your bag three feet from the ground onto the bus. According to horror stories online, if you didn't tip them, they would intentionally break something on your bag and then blame it on the bus ride, so I decided just to pay the tip. After all, a tip of 30 Egyptian Pounds was 1 US Dollar, so it wasn't like it was an oppressive burden. Delta Airlines had already broken my bag once, and I wasn't interested in it happening again. Some Austrians I saw at the bus stop in Alexandria took offence to it, but I had already played this game, and the baggage handler could see the tip in my hand, so we just did the simple exchange with a handshake and life went on. One dollar to keep my 350 dollar bag intact was more than a solid investment.

Where I Stayed: Ithaka Hostel

Google Photo Album