After a couple of days relaxing doing not much at all, we travelled north to Alexandria for the day. Alexandria is on the Mediterranean coast and with “only” 13million people, is about half the size of Cairo so not nearly as chaotic.
This was a whirlwind tour of the highlights of this pretty coastal city. We saw the Catacombs and ventured down into them but only to the first level of eight. These are underground tombs where rich families were buried which were covered with silt and dirt until a Donkey fell into one. The tomb decorations showed an interesting fusion between the Greek and Egyptian art and culture.
We also visited Pompei’s Pillar, King Farouk’s Palace which is now the Presidents summer home, the Citadel which is at the site of a lighthouse which was one of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World until it was destroyed by an earthquake, and the famous Library.
The library is amazing. It is a modern design representing the rising sun on the Mediterranean, with seven floors for reading which rely mainly on natural lighting. It also has a wide range of permanent art exhibitions as well as an ancient manuscript room which holds some of the ancient scrolls from the original Alexandria library. We could have spent a lot more time here!
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