Alexandria and Train to Aswan
We left Cairo and drove 3 hours to Alexandria, on the Mediterranean Sea. On the way we stopped at an Egyptian rest stop and a woman was making and selling bread:
Alexandria still makes use of the electric rail trains that were introduced by the British:
Some of the buildings around Alexandria, some are just destroyed but people live right next door. It is a contrast of rich and poor - the rich on the seaside and the poor in the city:
In Alexandria, we visited the Greek catacombs, the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, but no pictures were allowed. It's a shame because it was a really cool thing to see, deep under ground. They stretch on for miles, but there are now apartments built over them so the excavation is slow at best, if it will ever happen. We drove by Pompey's Pillar:
The seaside of Alexandria:
View from our hotel room balcony (we got upgraded to a suite thanks to our wonderful tour leader!):
The "adventurous eight" found a fantastic place for dinner - all of this food (family style) plus bottled water for the equivalent of $2/person! It was fantastic:
Alexandria at night:
After dinner, J and I took a horse-drawn carriage like this one back to our hotel. It was a much longer ride than we anticipated, and harrowing among the insane taxi drivers, but it was definitely an experience I'm glad we had:
On the carriage ride was saw a wedding celebration!
When we woke up the next morning we had a wonderful breakfast and then dipped our toes in the Mediterranean Sea, because people say until you've gotten in the Mediterranean you haven't been in Egypt (the water was entirely too cold to swim in, so our toes would have to do!):
Our second day in Alexandria was spent going to the old Fort. There is nothing left to see of Alexander the Great as all of those ruins are under water now. Our tour leader told us how divers, tourists and archeologists, do dive down to see the ruins. Here are pictures of the fort area, the fisherman, and the cats! The cats are everywhere by the fort:
After the fort, we visited a mosque, which was quite beautiful. We took a few pictures inside, too:
Then on to the Bibliotecha - it was amazing and I encourage you to Google it and learn more - it is the biggest library in the world with millions of books and they are endeavoring to put everything on-line. It houses art and history museums and is just fantastic. I wish we'd had an entire day to explore:
We left Alexandria to drive back to Cairo but there was construction on the entrance to the road to Cairo. Rather than having, say someone to direct traffic, or even a detour sign, everyone was left to their own to figure out how to get on the road. It was insane! We turned around over a median literally 4 times! This was not our van, obviously, but this is what we had to do, and yes that is a pedestrian on the right in the picture trying to cross the freeway:
We made it to the train station, but by this time Jen was not feeling well at all. It was probably something we ate, combined with the horrible cigarette smell in the train cabin, the awful train food, and the motion of the train, but whatever it was, let's just say it was the worst night on a train EVER! This was the last time Jen felt o.k. for the next 24 hours:
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