Last Stop: Alexandria

When I told a French guy on the Prince Abbas that we were going to Alexandria, he told us we had to do two things.  Neither was on the Memphis Tours itinerary, but Shaimaa agreed to add them after we visited the Catacombs.  Our route took us deep into the city past high narrow alleys of hanging laundry, decrepit buildings and dozens of street vendors, selling all kinds of food, including fish.

Shaima texted the Egyptian tourism minister to complain that the catacombs were flooded. They have long been emptied of their bones and treasure, so I'm not sure how much difference the water made aside from navigating the subterranean rooms.

A crude cobra decorated a burial room.

The city's colorful trams looked as if they might have been around when Lawrence Durrell wrote The Alexandria Quartet.

Taxis in the city are yellow.

Thom had been hoping for something like the Egyptian Riviera after our three-hour drive to the coast.  We got the Corniche instead, a  multi-lane highway that winds along the Mediterranean.

Google wasn't much help in locating the Mahmoud Said Museum, which our French guide declared a must-see sight for any art lover.  It bumped  a visit to Constantine Cavafy's home. I figured an artist's villa would have more visual appeal than a poet's living quarters. Said, a former judge, brought modernism to 20th century Egyptian art.  You'd be able to see for yourself what a terrific contribution he made if photos had been allowed.  His work reminded me a little of Marsden Hartley's.

Afterward, we drove along the Corniche to the Citadel of Qaitbay and walked along the windy promenade.

I love a man in a uniform.  These sailors agreed to pose.

We took Shaimaa and Nagy to the Greek Club for lunch where the fish was every bit as delicious as our French guide promised.  Too bad it was too chilly to dine al fresco.

Shaimaa said she got us a deal by haggling with the chef.

Afterward, I snapped my favorite picture of the trip.

Shaimaa, who wasn't familiar with either Cavafy or Said, did prove there is more to Egypt than ancient civilization by taking us to the magnificent Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  Suzanne Mubarak, wife of the president deposed during the Arab Spring, helped bring it to fruition just after the turn of the second millennium.

Even corrupt regimes can fund great public works.  Note the papyrus shapes at the tops of the supporting columns, a delightful allusion to the original library.  It housed many papyrus documents before Julius Caesar burned the place to the ground.

The library is almost entirely solar powered.  The shape of this exterior lamp nods to the Alexandria lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

This bust depicts Naguib Mahfouz who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988.  I'm reading The Cairo Trilogy now.  One character says, "There is more than one explanation for your fake news as usual."

The library's other art and exhibits were as nifty as the architecture.

Shaima had a sweet surprise up her sleeve to end our Egyptian trip.  Thom thinks Ice Twist could be big in the US.

Bah!

Khan el-Khalili

Ahmed, our Nile cruise guide, told us not to bother with Cairo's famous bazaar.  "Everything is made in China," he warned.

Corrugated plastic keeps out the harsh sun.

And lenses don't care where colorful goods are made.

 

 

Although I must say I found this mannequin a little shocking.

Shaimaa led us to a store deep in Khan el-Khalili where she could verify the glass goods were blown in Egypt.  She drives a hard bargain, too.

Real Egyptians shopped for food and home goods.

Cats are welcome, too.

Alabaster Mosque Star

A late afternoon visit to a mosque gave me a tiny taste of what Justin Bieber's life must be like.  I couldn't understand why these young women were so eager to have my picture taken with them.  "They're not used to seeing blondes with green eyes," explained Shaimaa after several chased me, shouting my name and begging for individual selfies.  "You'll be a star on Facebook tonight!"

Remember, this is a city where goats graze in the highway median, safe from the crazy automobile traffic.

We saw the Alabaster Mosque from a distance, and passed the quarry from which it was built.

Muhammad Ali, an Albanian and the progenitor of the last royal lineage in Egypt, built the grand mosque less than two centuries ago.

It's located within the Saladin Citadel which offers terrific views of the densely populated city with hundreds of other mosques.

We had to cover our shoes before we could enter the interior courtyard.  

King Louis Phillipe exchanged the brass clock in the tower for the Luxor obelisk that now stands in the Place de la Concorde.  It has never worked.

It smelled funny inside.

 

I took full advantage of my temporary celebrity status to photograph the super friendly, mostly young Muslims.