This morning is my offical last day of tours after 6 weeks of tourning. It started early this morning with a 2.5 hour ride to Alexandria from Giza. While the surface of the highway looked quite "westernized" and smooth, it truly was deceptive. It was like they had paved it over a bed of rocks.
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| This is the "gate" coming into the city of Alexandria on the highway. It says Alexandria in Greek and Arabic. And...yesterday I made a mistake in my blog. It is true that Arabic is written and read from right to left (opposite of English), but it is also read from top to bottom (like English), not bottom to top like I said yesterday. |
Anyway - in Alexandria we started by stopping at the Catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa. The way these under ground graves were discovered was back in 1900 a donkey disappeared through the ground. The catacombs are the largest Roman burial site in all of Egypt. There were more than 3 tiers of tombs that we climbed down into through a spiral staircase. It is estimated that there were about 300 tombs in these catacombs. But, like many places in Egypt, no cameras were allowed and they made you check it at the gate before going in, so alas, I have no pictures to share. And...like most places in Egypt, there is no gift shop, so alas, I have no pictures way either. (Which is okay seeing that I've bought more books on this trip then I have ever on any trip in my life!)
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| The entrance to the Catacombs |
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| See the Greek influence on the cravings? |
Our next stop was to Pompey's Pillar and the Serapeum. The pillar has been an important site in the city since 291 AD. It is named Pompey's Pillar because Celopatra's brother, had the Roman general Pompey murdered and reportedly his head was displayed on the top of the pillar. I guess that's one way to get a pillar named after you! While the column (Corinthian top and base) for my Fulbright friends!) stands in it's original state and in great condition (oh and 30 meters tall!), the Temple of Serapheum that once stood around it is in ruins. The temple was created for the Greeks and the Egyptians to worship a man-made god together, Serapis, who was a bull for the Egyptians and a curly-haired man for the Greeks. Besides the temple ruins, there was also an underground sanctuary where the priests would go and present sacrifices. One of the most interesting parts of the temple ruins was the "daughter library" of the great library of Alexandria, that is 100 steps below the temple ruins. It's believed that it once held the overflow of books and scripts from the Great Library of Alexandria. While the Library of Alexandria was completely destroyed over history, this library's shelves are still intact like they would have been back then and how they would have looked in the great library of Alexandria. Oh, and there is a Nilometer - basically a channel made to get the water from the Nile into the city - there as well. It was a surprising little visit for me.
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| Laundry day at the apartments behind the temple ruins. |
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| Aka - the library |
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| Can't you picture all kinds of scrolls and scripts on these shelves? |
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| The long tunnel where the priests would walk down and back out in order to present sacrifices to the man-made god of Serapis |
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| A copy of the original statue of the god of Serapis that was found in the sanctuary |
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| Yup....I had to help hold it up. |
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| And...I was a Spinx's head today as well. That was a first! |
I really enjoyed visiting the Citadel of Qaitbey which was built in 1477 AD and was placed on the ruins of the Pharos lighthouse that was destroyed (after being used for 17,000 years!) by an earthquake in the 11th century. The view of the Mediterranean Sea from the citadel/castle was quite striking and I approve of the setting chosen for this place.
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| See the wood/tree junctions? Pretty cool. |
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| The Egyptian Flag. I posted a picture here yesterday as well, but I screwed up the caption describing the flag. The red is representing the blood shed over the years, the white represents peace, and the black represents the furtile soil of the land. I got all of that part right, but in the middle is an eagle - representing freedom - not a spider (like I said yesterday!). I got two stories mixed up and couldn't see the eagle in my picture well enough yesterday. |
Our last stop of the day was to the modern library of Alexandria which stands on the place of the ancient of the great library of Alexandria. This very modern structure was opened in 2002, but I was not able to go inside of it today because it was closed. Friday is the Islamic holy day, but it usually opens around 3pm, but since the revolution that happened in January and February of this year there have been demonstrations every Friday and they happen in the street right in front of and down the road from the library, so it is not opened on Fridays at all right now.
And here are a few pictures from the road to and from Alexandria that I thought I'd include.
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| I don't know what this young man has just bought to drink, but he was drinking it out of a baggie with a straw. |
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| I'm assuming it says something in Arabic about Pepsi? |
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| This picture was really hard to get, but all the way back to Cairo, there were tons of little trucks packed to the brim in the back with tomatos. With how bumpy those roads were, I really don't see how they show up as tomatoes and not tomato juice! |
Well...that's all folks from Egypt. Tomorrow morning I fly out to Istanbul in the morning where I will be staying the night. Then on Sunday morning, it is to the USA I go!
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