I came to Egypt because I was accepted for a housesit in Cairo. Due to my uncertainty about whether I’d even be able to get out of Ecuador, I suggested to the homeowner that he try to find someone else while here was still time. I didn’t want to leave him with no one if my Ecuadorian residency visa and passport issue didn’t get sorted out, and I never arrived. He did get someone else, and even though my issues also got sorted out at the last minute, it was the right choice for me to back away and ensure he would not be left in the lurch.
By the way, they did check my Ecuadorian residency visa against my passport when I was at the airport, so it’s good that got done, even though it was incredibly stressful at the time.
Because I thought I was going to be taking care of two dogs, I didn’t book my tour to the pyramids until Saturday (number one priority otherwise), because I didn’t want to treat the dogs and house as if they were simply inconveniences on my vacation. I figured we should all get settled with each other for a few days first.
Once my time became my own, I ended up with two free days before my pyramid tour. I immediately booked a tour to Alexandria.
All that is to explain how my first sightseeing tour in Egypt was not to the Great Pyramid, not even to Sakkara or Dashur to see earlier attempts at pyramids, not even within Cairo.
No, I went back to the 4th century BC, when the glory that was Egypt had been in decline for centuries, after invasions by Kush, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Persians.
I knew a few things about Alexandria before I booked the tour. It was founded by Alexander the Great (in 331 BC I later found out). It is on the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Nile delta. Because the land is so marshy around there, archaeological excavation has been difficult. With the advent of underwater archaeology in modern times, they seem to be digging stuff up from the harbour all the time now.
Alexandria was also the site of the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was a massive lighthouse, guiding ships into the harbour at Alexandria.
An ancient depiction of the Pharos Lighthouse.
The Pharos was built around 250 B.C. It is estimated to have been around 100 metres (330 feet) tall. Which doesn’t sound like much to modern ears, until you remember that the Great Pyramid of Giza is a little over 146 metres (481 feet) tall. And it was the tallest human made structure on earth until the Eiffel Tower.
I had the idea the destruction happened in ancient times. I later found out that the lighthouse was one of only three of the ancient wonders to survive to the modern era. It stood for over a thousand years, was damaged by three earthquakes and finally was abandoned in ruins in 1323. In 1480, its last remnants were used in the construction of the Citadel of Qaitbay on the same site.
Alexandria, most famously perhaps, was also the site of the ancient Great Library of Alexandria, established about the same time as the Pharos. Although the Library was not officially one of the wonders of the ancient world, it ought to have been. At its height, it is estimated to have contained as many as 400,000 scrolls. Before the printing press, every one of those scrolls was written by hand. The common belief (which I also held) was that it was burned down all at once in a great cataclysm.
This was not by any means, the real story. In fact, the Library went into decline as one of the Ptolemy pharaohs started censoring scholarship. People stopped going, scrolls stopped being acquired. There were more than one fire, and eventually it more faded away than suffered an all encompassing disaster.
When I went looking for tours, I learned that a new ‘Great Library’ has been established in Alexandria, on or near the site of the ancient one. The tours usually include it, as well as the Citadel, the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa and the misnamed Pompey’s Pillar. Some also include the also misnamed Roman Amphitheatre. After a lot of scrolling, I found a tour including those and more.
I went downstairs at 7:00 a.m. yesterday to look for my driver.
My Airbnb building
The early start was because it’s about three and a half hours from Cairo to Alexandria. Generally with tours, I look for someone holding a sign with my name on it. Nothing. There was a man in car. I approached him and said the tour company’s name, and “Alexandria?”. He just looked confused. I paced up and down for maybe five minutes. The man in the car said something and I went over. He was holding up his phone with my name on it. Alrighty then.
He was in the only one in the car. I asked if he spoke English and he muttered “Little bit” while waving his hand in the universal manner of “Eh, whatever.”
This alarmed me, as I was supposed to have an English speaking guide. However, I sat back for the trip and figured, as long as he let me out at the correct stops, I could find my own way through the Catacombs – and if not and I ended up a bleached pile of bones, well, I’d be in the right spot for burial.
There wasn’t too much traffic leaving Cairo and we soon came out to a ten lane highway going across the desert. Occasionally a sign would come up for something or other and a four or six lane highway would branch off or over. The road was plastered with billboards, many of them for what seemed to be housing developments. Some offering beachfront. In the middle of nowhere? In the desert? You’re never too far from the Nile in Egypt I guess.
We stopped at a roadside conglomerate of gas stations and restaurants and little stores. My driver motioned me to get out. I ventured into the washroom of one of the restaurants. There was an attendant who offered me some toilet paper. I gave her five Egyptian pounds, which I happened to have after dinner the night before. She seemed satisfied. I later did the conversion – this was about 22 cents Canadian. It seemed an insult, but as I said, she took it without complaint.
The toilet was rather rustic, but clean enough. I bought a few snacks for the road and fed some ice cream to the cats. Cats are everywhere here. I’ve seen ten cats for every dog. And they are all very friendly. Which makes sense, as they live on the kindness of strangers. In addition to the black and white tom I gave my ice cream too, a couple of orange and white guys were scarfing down bread from another lady.
Not a very healthy diet it seems to me, but they looked healthy enough.
We got back on the highway and soon, the skies got cloudy. The road came closer to the Nile and it seemed to be flowing onto land at some points. Then electrical towers were raised up on pylons to keep them out of the water. Even the highway ran up onto a bit of a causeway.
I remembered that Alexandria was in the Nile delta and realised we must be getting close.
The road took a curve and off in the distance were banks of massive apartment buildings that seemed to go on for miles. All the same design and all the same colour as the desert. I noticed this on leaving the airport in Cairo too – vistas of sand coloured apartments towers.
We had reached Alexandria.
As we came towards the end of the apartment buildings, older buildings appeared on the other side. Equally uniform, but these were grey with age and quite run down.
Then we seemed almost immediately to be in an area of narrow streets with run down buildings on either side, and run down people in run down clothes walking along or congregating with their neighbours.
I wondered what we were doing in this very poor neighbourhood where tuk-tuk taxis darted around like buzzing insects and there seemed barely room for one lane of traffic, let alone two. Eventually the driver pulled over and stopped. I asked what was happening. I understood him to say we were waiting for the guide.
Oh. I finally got it – the guide for Alexandria lives in Alexandria, duh.
As I watched the life on the street, I saw a woman stoop and put something in a purple pail, with a rope tied to the handle that disappeared up the side of the building. She tugged on the rope and the pail started ascending. Leaning out, I could just discern a man pulling it up to a balcony that had to be at least fifteen floors above the street. A minute later, the pail descended again and the process was repeated.
I deduced, no elevator in that building. Wow.
My guide, Shery, appeared, greeted me and took me into the Catacombs. I hadn’t realised they were so close.
The courtyard is a kind of open air museum, with sarcophagi, fragments of columns and statues and such that have been excavated from the waters of Alexandria harbour.
The Catacombs date from Greek and Roman times, and are an amalgam of funerary practices from both, as well as Pharaonic Egyptian elements.
There is a three story shaft with winding stairs around it. Bodies were lowered down the shaft.
All of this was tunnelled from the bedrock.
The name Kom El Shoqafa translates as ‘mound of shards’. This is because mourners would hold a feast with their dearly departed at a banquet hall in the catacombs, before interment. There was a special room for this.
They would then shatter the dishes they used and leave the the shards at the site.
It was considered bad luck to take home and keep using dishes from the feast with the dead.
I won’t go into detail about the other features but there were a couple of well preserved tombs and monuments with sculptures and paintings combing elements from all three cultures. The entrance to the principal tomb is flanked by two snakes, one on either side.
Each snake wears a Roman Caduceus and a Greek Thyrsus as well as the Egyptian double crown and is topped by a shield showing a Medusa. Religious syncretism in action.
The deceased man and woman, shown in statues, have Roman hairstyles, heads sculpted in the Greek style and an Egyptian posture.
One of the tomb scenes shows mummification, but that practice had died out long before. The people in the tombs would not have been mummified.
One room, the Hall of Caracula, contains the bones of horses belonging to Emperor Caracalla.
What stuck me most was the crudity of the art, compared to classical Egyptian paintings.
We went on to the Roman ‘amphitheatre’. I’ve seen a lot of these from Rome itself to Spain to Lyon in France. They’ve always been huge. This one was C-shaped instead of U-shaped and very small – only ten rows of seats.
Shery explained that current thinking is that this structure (which also had a roof) was a school. She had me stand on a round flat stone embedded in the centre front of the rows of seats.
She invited me to say something. My voice came back to me amplified as if with a microphone.
I agree with the school theory.
There were the remains of baths, and houses.
Some very nice mosaic floors and remnants were in a little shed.
The shed covered the remains of the Villa of the Birds.
You can see why they named it that.
Onwards to have my photo taken from the street in front of the Pillar of Pompey, which actually has nothing to do with Pompey it was later discovered, but was put up in memorium of the Emperor Diocletian, who lived about a hundred or so years before Pompey was born.
History is like a game of telephone.
Plus, Shery had an absolute fetish about taking my photo.
Next was the modern library of Alexandria. Stunning architecture.
Shery sent me on a tour with the Library’s tour guide. She explained that many elements of the building are done to minimize noise and maximize light for the scholars.
I got a glimpse of the rare manuscripts room, but no photos were allowed. However, here is a sample of an original of the second edition of the monumental (it’s always described that way) ‘Description d’Egypte’ which was on display in a hallway.
This is the mammoth (okay, yes, monumental) work composed by the shiploads of more than 160 scholars taken by Napoleon on his expedition to conquer Egypt in 1798. The contingent included historians, mathematicians and other ‘savants’, and 2000 artists and technicians including 400 engravers (take a moment to absorb that).
It was published over a period of 20 years. At the time of its completion, it was the largest known published work in the world, comprising nine volumes of text, one additional entire volume just to describe the plates, ten volumes of plates, one volume of map plates, and two additional volumes of Mammut plates, which I think are supersized ones. The second edition ,from which the display volume comes, was 32 volumes. It was cheaper because it wasn’t in colour, except for the frontispiece.
Napoleon was such a fascinating man. If there is another example of an imperial, colonizing power, going on an expedition of conquest while at the same time, preparing to preserve the history of the civilization and culture it means to conquer, I can’t think of one.
Napoleon’s attempt at conquest was brought to ruin by Admiral Nelson sailing into Aboukir Bay and destroying Napoleon’s fleet. The French were, in effect, marooned, with no way to communicate with or get re-supplied from France. In August of 1799, after an attempt at conquering the Holy Land also failed, Napoleon abandoned his army and sailed away secretly with some of his generals, to advance his political ambitions in France.
The Library also has a silk cover from the Kaaba, the large black structure in Mecca, the object of pilgrimage.
The Kaaba holds the Black Stone, a rock set into its eastern corner, which by Muslim tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve (I hope I have that right, with apologies in advance to Muslim readers for any mistakes). The Kaaba is the direction of prayer for Muslims, and the holiest site in the Muslim world.
I didn’t know that each year, at least in more modern times, the Kaaba at pilgrimage time, is covered by a different cloth. This one was given to the Library by the donor of the cloth for that year.
Also in the same area was the large wooden box which held the cloth while it was transported on the back of a camel to the Kaaba.
But my favourite part was the display of modern Egyptian sculpture.
These are by Egyptian sculptor Adam Henin, who lived from 1929 to 2022. Aren’t they incredible?
Our next stop was the Citadel of Qaitbay.
As I said, it was built on the site of the ancient lighthouse and two of the stones from that Ancient Wonder can be seen at the entrance.
The builder was a 15th century Mameluke who rose from slave to Sultan (no, I’m not going to bore you further with the history of the mamelukes. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the Wikipedia article:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk)
It seemed very similar to other castles or forts of the same period that I’ve seen in Europe. It differed only in having a ‘mosque’ for the soldiers to pray in – I suppose like a chapel in a European castle.
What really made it worth the visit were the magnificent views of Alexandria harbour from the ramparts.
And the cat reposing beside a cannon from Napoleon’s attack on Alexandria, dredged up from the harbour. The cannon, not the cat.
While going to and from the Citadel, we drove along beside the corniche, a lovely wide pedestrian walkway along the Mediterranean.
Horse and carriage rides available.
I kept waiting to come upon the posh hotels, or historic mansions, or government buildings and wide boulevards that generally take up seaside real estate in cities. Doesn’t appear there are any in Alexandria. Very narrow streets ran off the corniche with the same rundown tall apartment buildings.
I saw some fruit stands, but nothing like the numbers we have in Cuenca.
Also racks of dried fish. Shery said it is a local thing which you either love or hate. Her son loves it, but her daughter can’t be forced to eat it.
There were two more stops. First, El Nabi Daniel Mosque, which some people think stands over the tomb of Alexander the Great. The location of this tomb is a great historical mystery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Alexander_the_Great
Some voices want the site excavated to find the tomb. Can’t imagine that is going to happen.
The mosque is said to contain the remains of the scholar and venerated teacher Prophet Daniel. I’m honestly not clear on whether this is meant to be the Daniel of the Bible and lion’s den fame.
The mosque was built in the 18th century, and restored in more recent times. Regardless of who is or is not buried there, it was an exquisitely beautiful building.
The light in the dome is coming from open windows, where birds fly in and out. I was worried for the carpet.
I was interested that with all grandeur of the carved ceiling and walls, there were ranks of ugly plastic chairs for the men who come to pray. You’d think they could have included something nicer in the budget.
The women of course are hidden behind the screen.
Also ugly are the neon signs on boards beside a big throne. I asked what the purpose was (they looked to me like those juke boxes that sat on old diner tabletops) and was told they show the time and temperature and other such matters.
The last stop, the Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, is the historical seat of the Pope of Alexandria, the head of the Coptic Orthodox church. What a difference from the seat of the Pope in Rome!
This modest building bills itself as the oldest church in Africa, but in fact, the church itself is 20th century construction and simply stands on the site of earlier churches. The first of these, it is said, was founded but St. Mark the Evangelist, and dates to 42 AD.
St. Mark’s relics (bones and skull) were stolen by the Venetians in 828, after which the poor bones got scattered amongst a number of churches in a number of places. The then Pope of Rome returned some of the relics in 1968. I was made to take off my shoes and led down some stairs to a little mosaic covered room.
I bent down the peered behind a thick glass door to a pile of bones at the end of a small passage.
I asked Shery if in Islam, the bones and relics of saints are preserved. She looked scandalised and said, emphatically, “Of course not!”
I have to side with the Prophet on that issue.
Whatever the reality of St. Mark, his peregrinations around Alexandria and the state of his bones, the church was very pretty, and had some nice modern mosaics and paintings.
Even the Pope’s throne was pretty humble. By Vatican standards at least.
We ended the day at Mohamed Ahmed’s for lunch.
This unassuming little restaurant, I was told, has entertained Presidents and Queens.
Lunch was pre-ordered, so I didn’t get to try any of these cheese dishes. I would have been interested to see if the pastrami corresponded to anything I would recognise as pastrami.
Look at the prices. 55 Egyptian pounds is $2.50 Canadian.
An amusing skip up in translating “Foul”.
My lunch was a dish of beans, a tahini dip, pita bread and falafel, which was green inside.
I wouldn’t say it was above the ordinary. It certainly wasn’t up to Cuenca standards for more than a $2.50 almuerzo. But it was all very tasty and I ate every bite.
Instead of napkins, a box of kleenex appeared on the table with two loose tissues on top. At the end of the meal, Shery told me to take the box. I remarked that that was a rather unusual parting gift. She said it wasn’t a gift. I had paid for it.
Don’t ask me. No idea.
Cairo and Alexandria are very, very, very different from anywhere I have been before. I suspect it is not unlike what India is like. Twenty-two million people in Cairo. That’s five million more than in Mumbai and two-thirds of the population of all of Canada. Over five million in the ‘much smaller’ Alexandria. In other old cities in the world, ancient houses and old buildings have been torn down for urban renewal, widening of streets, the creation of parks. I have seen nothing like this here, so far a least. These cities have all the appearance of more and more and more people crowding in, with very little being done to accommodate them, except squeeze in ever higher apartment buildings. It must be hell in the hot summer months.
But sunset over the desert was glorious.
Tomorrow morning, I finally get to the pyramids and Sphinx of Giza. And the camel with my name on it. Have to say, the closer it comes to being time, the more my enthusiasm for getting up on a camel is waning. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
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