Afterwards, I went to Ramses Station (which is in Ramses, a little bit northeast of Downtown) to leave for Alexandria. I met up with Brian from AUC, and he brought along his roommates Justin and Morgan and their friend Amira. We were also accompanied by Maggie and her brother Mahmoud, who are both native Egyptians.
We took a minibus from nearby Ramses Station to Alexandria around 8:45 or so. The driver waited until it was filled with about twelve persons or so, but it was still comfortable. The trip to Alexandria was a little under three hours. One way ticket: 21 L.E., or about $3.78 USD. That's a good deal.
The area along the highway was very sparsely populated. It was mostly desert, with the occasional small settlement. You could be certain to see a small market and a mosque every few kilometers, but not much besides that. As we got closer to Alexandria there were more industrial buildings along the road, selling machinery or producing building materials. Just before we arrived in Alexandria, the road passed across the city, so we could see the huge expanse of the cityscape. Alexandria isn't a massive city, but the fact that it's along the coast means that you can see the spread of almost the entire city.
Various roadside shots, showing the sparsely-populated areas
The minibus dropped off us somewhere near Masr Station, Alexandria's train station. The area outside the station was chaos. People selling goods and pressuring us to buy, traffic flowing in all directions, and people leaving and entering the station. Our Egyptian friends seemed to know where they were going, so they brought us to a minibus. We took a minibus or two across the city, so I got to see a lot of how the city looks. I tried to compare Cairo to Alexandria in my mind, at least based on first impressions. The first thing I noticed was that there I saw no Westerners at all; everyone was Arab. It felt like people were not used to seeing foreigners, as many of them exclaimed "Welcome to Alex," and lots of them hassled us to buy trinkets. There was evidence of Greek and Roman architecture, and the city seemed a bit cleaner and not as beaten-down, but on the whole it really wasn't that different from Cairo.
We arrived at Citadel Qaitbey, which is a major tourist location. There were quite a few tourists there, although they were mostly Arabs. There were some Asian groups and a few Western tourists. After I got my ticket, I noticed a guy from my Arabic class was standing behind me, which was totally unexpected, but it made sense that he would be visiting here also.
Outside the Citadel there is a big market with trinkets for sale
The Citadel was a very impressive place. It was built in the late 15th Century by the Ottomans. Inside there is a small mosque which is the oldest in the city.
There are three floors in the fort, which consist mostly of empty coridors with lots of windows overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Various shots from within the Citadel
There was also a subterranean floor which had passages out to the sea. We found a courtyard at the end of one of the basement level. Nobody said we couldn't climb up to the second level of the wall, so we did.
Mahmoud, Brian, and me
The Citadel also had an outdoor deck, which had spectacular views of the city and the Mediterranean.
Brian doing something dangerous. The drop from here was about a hundred feet.
Me
I found this sight amusing. Here the graffiti reads allahu akbar and la ala ila allhu wa muhammed rasool allah. In English, "God is the greatest" and "There is no god except God and Muhammed is the messenger of God"
Afterwards the Egyptians knew of a good restaurant where we could eat, so we took a minibus there. This wasn't a tourist restaurant, which I was pleased with. I could tell firstly because it was one of those "down-the-alley-and-take-a-left" places that I'll never be able to find again, and also because they gave us special treatment - they let us watch the food being prepared, taste it before we sat down, and let us pick our seats. The only thing that was a little strange was the bed of sawdust on the stairs and the ground level, but I guess it helped keep things clean.
The Egyptians ordered for us. Everyone was given a plate of fried calamari, boiled jumbo shrimps, fried white fish, crab kofta, boiled oysters, rice, pita bread, salad, lemons and limes, some sort of onion soup, and hot peppers. The portions were absolutely enormous. I was the only one who actually finished everything, but I was very hungry. I must say that it was probably the best seafood I've ever had. I think I paid 39 L.E. for everything including a generous tip, or about $7.00 USD. I would have been willing to pay four or five times that price.
Then we headed to the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The library is on the site of the original library of Alexander, but I don't think any of the ancient library actually remains. Nonetheless, it was a great structure with really interesting architecture. The Bibliotheca is actually a functional library, not the biggest in the world, but bigger than most university libraries. There are also a couple of museums inside.
We didn't go into the main exhibit with the Greek sculptures, but we saw exhibits on old Arabic printing presses, an Arab artist who did a lot of research and conceptualization of Ancient Egypt, and views of Alexandria throughout history. The latter was my favorite. It had letters, maps, and pictures from different periods of history by foreigners, especially from when Napoleon's army was in Alexandria.
The exterior of the Bibliotheca
The main reading room of the library
After that, we sat down on the corniche by the sea. It was just as the sun was setting and men were fishing right below us, so I took some pretty good pictures. At this point we had a group of young Egyptian boys come up to us and were intrigued by us, so they asked all sorts of questions. They accused Mahmoud of not being Egyptian, and claimed that I looked like I was British, not American. They were quite amusing.
Mahmoud and Maggie had to be somewhere tomorrow, so they took the train back.
View from the rock wall. The Citadel is located all the way at the end of the cityscape here (you can't see it from this picture).
I guess these men knew I was taking pictures of them
We spent the rest of the night visiting the various coffee houses/bars. The others tried the sheesha that they offer just about everywhere, but I refuse to try that stuff so I can't really say how it was. The atmosphere along the corniche is very comfortable, and there seemed to be a lot going on even late at night.
We grabbed something quick to eat at KFC. It sounds as if it's very American, but it still feels very much like a foreign culture in there and we still stuck out like sore thumbs. We decided we would head home tonight since we weren't sure of the best places to stay and we didn't have any fluent Egyptians with us. They invited me to come back with them to Alexandria in three weeks, where we could stay over and see other things.
We were going to take a train back to Cairo, but we found out the last one left at 11:45 or thereabouts. So we decided to take a minibus back. Price this time was 25 L.E. With prices like these, I could go to Alexandria every weekend if I wanted.
Overall, it was a great visit to Alexandria. I'll be back again in March and we plan to see the Catacombs, the Greco-Roman museum, and some other things.
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