Alexandria is quite nice

Here I am keeping my promise, writing a blog.

Today we went on the city orientation tour of Alexandria. The contrast between Cairo and Alexandria was apparant immediately. For one the port of Alexandria has a actual port terminal building with lovely landscaping and nice buildings. For two, Alexandria looks like a cosmopolitan Mediterranean city. The water is beeeyutiful. The architecture is gorgeous. And the tour guide even pointed out how clean the streets are to us. And they are. No horse carcasses in the town.

The first place we went was the catacombs, which aren't catacombs because they aren't Christian, but still they call them catacombs (or something like that). These were the underground burial places for later era Egyptians. The catacombs were discovered when a mule fell through the ground into them. This is similar to how they found a famous site near the step pyramid, when someone was setting up a tripod and poked through to a room of buried treasure. (I keep hoping I'll step in a gofer hole and pull out an ankle covered in jewels).

Our next stop was the museum of Alexandria, which had some cool Byzantine and Coptic art and artifacts. It also had a floor of Roman/Greek and Pharaohnic artifacts, which was also amazing. But the early Christian stuff is what really turned me on.

Next up was the kingdom era palace of Mohammad Ali and his descendants up to King Farouk. The 360 acre gardens and palaces have been turned over to the public, and
you can stay in one of the palaces for a mere $2,000 per night. All of the gardens overlook the Mediterranean, which did I mention, is GORGEOUS! The weather couldn't have been nicer to day. A bit of nip in the air this morning and a sunny, breezy high 70's all day.

Lunch was at a great place overlooking the water. Some of us got fish is a lemony sauce the rest got filet in mushroom sauce. Afterward I walked down to the water and stuck my feet in the Mediterranean, it was exactly the temperature ocean water should be, that cool that starts to feel almost warm the longer you're in it.

After that Library of Alexandria. I'm going to write more about this tomorrow, but I will say it was really stunning and peaceful.

The sun was just starting to set when we came out of the library and the air and the light were magical. What a town. I'm going to upload this real quick so I can meet some people for dinner and an evening walk.

More tomorrow.