Alexandria

 

We were startled by lightning and thunder after breakfast today. The Egyptians were especially surprised. One man ran out onto the sidewalk to see if the loud boom was from a car or truck crash in the street. It wasn’t. Rain is a rarity in Egypt, but today would be rainy, at least by Egyptian standards.

We started the day in the Montazah Gardens, east of our hotel, on the Mediterranean. This area belonged to the Mohamed Ali family, which ruled Egypt from 1805 until the coup d’etat in 1952. In 1892, King Abbas II began construction of a large Montazah Gardens palace called Salamlek. This palace faced the family’s private beach and yacht harbor. In 1932 King Fuad built an even larger palace called the Haramlik. Salamlek became the Queen’s palace and is now a hotel. The larger, Haramlik palace looks like something Leopold of Bavaria might have built. No wonder the country was ripe for a coup in 1952. However, after 22 months of revolution, some Egyptians today seem to yearn for the good old days of Kings Abbas, Fuad, and Farouk.

The gardens contained volcanic rocks that had been painted a pleasing tan color and, more naturally, bougainvilleas in a variety of hues. At least one bougainvillea had two colors on the same specimen. The gardens contained Egyptian crows, which have grey shoulders, but are otherwise black. The Egyptian royal family used the sleeping lion as its symbol. At the entrance to the park was a traffic symbol with four sleeping lions in the center. There were other sleeping lions throughout the park.

Next we drove to the catacombs of Kom al-Shoqafa, called by Fodors “the most impressive of Alexandria’s ancient remains.” The catacombs were constructed in the 2nd century by people still practicing the ancient religion. There were carvings of the Egyptian gods Anubis, Thoth, Horus and Isis inside the catacombs. The catacombs were cut out of soft sandstone and were originally the burial place of a single family, but later became open to public burials. In the 4th-century, public burial area, you can see sarcophagi for more august people, in contrast with the normal pigeon holes for everyday burials. The catacombs were discovered in 1900 when a donkey fell through the roof of one of the chambers.

At the catacombs our bus developed an electrical problem in its engine, so we returned from the catacombs to a warm bus. We waited about 20 minutes for a mechanic to arrive who could fix the problem. He got it fixed quickly and we were on to our next destination, Pompey’s pillar. On the way three boys of about 10 years old, dressed in school clothes, started running alongside the bus and waving at us, asking to have their pictures taken. Traffic was so slow that they ran with us all the way to Pompey’s pillar, about a mile. We had heard from Heba, our guide, that children like to receive pens or pencils with American writing on them, so I gave them a Friends of Scouting pen that Abby had in her purse.

Pompey’s pillar is a bit of a letdown. Although it is a pillar, it has nothing to do with Pompey, who was murdered by Pharaoh Ptolemy before he even got all the away ashore in Alexandria. However, it is one of Alexandria’s main tourist attractions, so we took a few quick photos from the bus and moved on.

A short distance away is the Roman amphitheater, the only known Roman amphitheater in Egypt. The theater is a perfect parabola, so if you stand on the round stone marking the focal point, you get quite a reverberation from the seats of the theater. Nancy, one of our traveling companions, found it truly amazing. The reverberation is only heard by the speaker standing at the focal point, not by anyone else. Preserved mosaics with signs asking us not to walk on them were in front of the theater. Here were ancient baths and living quarters. Our guide did not mention that they were ancient baths, but Abby figured that out right away by remembering the Roman baths that we had seen in Italy. There were monuments that had been excavated from below the sea off the coast of Alexandria. We would later learn that Alexandria’s waterfront has subsided about 6.5 meters since ancient times, so a portion of ancient Alexandria is now under water.

We stopped for a late lunch at a large, and almost empty, restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean. It had a very nice selection of hors d’oeuves, or dips, that we ate as salads or spread on our pita bread. I was served a half-chicken, boned and butterflied, a dish which I had never seen before.

We took pictures of Fort Qayt, built in 1479 out of the ruins of the ancient Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The great lighthouse, 400 feet tall, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1307. Our lecturer, later in the day, informed us that parts of the lighthouse, including its massive stone door and two flanking statues, are in shallow water next to the fort. Near the fort is the Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi mosque, which we stopped to snap a few pictures of on the way back to the hotel.

Our evening lecture was about the underwater excavation to find parts of the ancient lighthouse and other ancient remains. I asked her if the revolution had made more difficult to finance her underwater excavations. She said that it had made everything more difficult. After the revolution, she had to be re-credentialed as a legitimate underwater excavator, even though everyone knows her. Even after being re-credentialed, it is hard to get a permit because the existing officials know they will be gone in a few months. I got the distinct impression that average Egyptians are tired of the revolution and are ready to move on to a fully functioning government.