Coastal Change

After a pretty good night's sleep we were up early for our delivered breakfast - again a none too appetising mix of bread rolls and pastries. We were sitting up to see the platform at Giza Station during our stop there at about 6:00am - the place we had been in such a desperate hurry to reach just over a week ago. This time we continued on across the river to Cairo's main Rameses Station, which with a few pauses for signals or whatever, took another half an hour.

Exiting the platform at Rameses we took the wrong turn and - after a vigorous struggle up the stairs against a tide of humanity coming the other way - found ourselves on the opposite side to the main ticket office. While I minded the luggage Laura went off and found the right place to be - and how to get there - and we then used an overpass to get to the main station concourse. As it happened there were no 1st Class tickets left for the next train to Alexandria, leaving at 8:00am, so we had to settle for the cheaper 2nd Class Air-Con tickets instead, costing EGP70 (AU$5.30).

Which turned out to be fine. Laura used a doily on the rather grubby seat, and there were no other foreigners in sight, but the carriage was air conditioned and comfortable. The trip took us through the extensive Nile delta which is a heavily cultivated region growing all manner of crops. And, in this post Aswan High Dam era, also reportedly struggling with over use of fertilisers, salinity and the effects of irrigation on the water table. The Nile splits into two main branches through the delta and we crossed both of them on the way to Alexandria.

The trip took about 2h:30m and after we disembarked we had to haul our luggage along part of the "platform" that was dirt and sand only. Our hotel - the recently restored Paradise Inn Windsor Palace - was situated on the corniche running along the shore of the harbour, and since it was not yet even lunch time and much more temperate here on the coast, it was a pleasant introduction to the city to walk to the hotel and take in the sights.

To begin with, just in the small square outside the station, there was a street market in operation. I minded the luggage while Laura had a quick look, but it was mostly western style clothes and cheap plastic goods which were of no interest to us. We crossed the park and followed the main street down to the harbour. There were lots of interesting shops and we noticed at least one place selling what looked like a nice fruit yogurt. When we reached our hotel we were a bit puzzled, because it seemed to be all closed up, until we realised that the entrance was in the side street.

Ocean & Fort glimpses.

The place next door.

It really was quite grand looking inside and we were again pleased to learn that we'd been given a free upgrade to a suite. The lift up to the 5th floor was a real vintage piece - very small with swing inner doors and a fancy, ironwork, gate-like outer door that had to be operated manually. Our room was spacious, with high ceilings and an ornate chandelier, and  and the small balcony offered "ocean glimpses" from the side street - and a nice view of what could have passed as a bombed out building across the road!

The restaurant menu.

After settling in we set off to find some lunch as our first priority. We explored the streets one block back from the corniche and, after Laura managed to narrowly avoid getting run over by a tram, ended up at a little corner restaurant - with clichéd red-checked table clothes. As is so often the case, reading the mangled English menu offered some entertainment, but nevertheless we had a nice mixed plate and some salads.

Nice harbour views on offer.

A fishy looking mural.

Thus fortified we set out on a walk along the waterfront to the fort out on the point - The Citadel of Qaitbay. Along the way we passed the local fish markets, which smelled exactly as you'd expect a fish market to smell. In the end it was a gentle stroll of less than an hour to reach the fort. Once there we paid the modest entry fee of EGP40 (AU$3) to enter the fort and have a look around.

The fort's main citadel.

Doorman on a break...?

Fort Qaitbey was built in 1480 on the site of the legendary Pharos Lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) by a sultan whose name, co-incidentally, was Qaitbey. Some of the stone from the original lighthouse, which was destroyed by a series of earthquakes, was re-used in the fort's construction. The fort itself is a bit of a warren of rooms, many of which provide good views out to sea or back over the city. I think there might have been a few local school groups visiting as well - there seemed to quite a few youngsters about.

Exploring the fort.

The ornate ceiling.

Window view.

On our way back, instead of just retracing our steps along the corniche, we detoured about a block back from the waterfront to explore. This took us through some much less touristy scenery. At one stage we found ourselves passing through a whole lot of small mobile fair ground rides lining both sides of a street. Some of the merry-go-round "seats" were a bit macabre - fierce looking sea monsters, scarily grinning clowns and tigers with children in their mouths. We couldn't be sure if they were in active use or had been "mothballed" for some future carnival. Certainly nothing was happening at the time - perhaps it comes alive on weekends or holidays.

The carnival is over...

We also found a local cake shop selling a variety of delicious looking cakes. We duly sampled some, although it took a while to decipher the correct selling process - point to the thing you wanted, have a chunk cut off, wait for it to be weighed and then take a small slip with the price on it to the sales counter - three steps way. After paying,  the slip was stamped and you could return to the cake counter to pick up your packaged purchases. It was certainly worth it though, as we found a step to sit on and devoured them straight away.

Back in our hotel room we put our feet up for a while as we considered plans for dinner. Around dusk we headed out to an eatery nearby that was recommended in the LP guide but found that it was standing room only - just to wait for a table! Well that wasn't going to work, so we left there to browse for an alternative. Fortunately we found a little local diner with pictures of some attractive looking meals out the front. Pointing to one, the owner seemed a little reluctant to sell us this dish. Memories of the offal stall in Luxor came flooding back, and with some pointing to appropriate body areas we were able to confirm it was in fact liver.  Luckily there were beef dishes on offer as well, which sufficed nicely.

With the main course taken care of we set off to try for dessert at The Bakery Shop, or TBS as it is known. It was about a 10-15 minute walk, and we passed another very promising looking patisserie, "Chaque Jour", just before we reached TBS.

Treats in hand we walked back to our hotel, with a slight detour to get a couple of the fruit yogurts we had seen on our walk from the station this morning. So by the time we made it back to our room it really felt like we'd done quite a bit of walking today - which of course we had. Still we had some nice desserts to savour before turning in for the night.

Not a bad view for breakfast!

Breakfast the next morning was on the rooftop terrace - such a common feature in Egypt - and this one was truly superb as befitting a hotel of this stature. Not only was the view over the harbour  stunning, the array of food available from the buffet was possibly the best we'd seen on this trip. Needless to say we were both as full as the proverbial egg by the time we waddled back to our room.

Hauling in the net.

Sorting the catch.

After packing up, checking out and leaving our bags in the care of the hotel for a few hours, we set off for a walk, in the opposite direction to yesterday afternoon, to the modern "Bibliotheca Alexandrina". This is the modern equivalent of the legendary Library of Alexandria, which was once the ancient world's single greatest archive of knowledge. Before we got very far we saw a group of fishermen on the shore hauling in a huge net that a boat had dropped out in the harbour, so we doubled back and watched to see what they managed to catch. It took them about 20 minutes to haul the net in, and the catch looked to be a fairly modest one. Perhaps the most striking thing was not just the number of plastic bottles and that were caught in the net, but the fact that the fishermen simply plucked them out of the net and tossed than back in the water! It was hard to believe, given the huge harbour that Alexandria sits on is beautiful - blue and shiny and, fishermen's hauls not withstanding, very clean.

The Sea Bride statue.

Fish-eye view of the library.

Once that entertainment was over we resumed out planned walk. The library was much closer than the Citadel had been so it only took us about 20 minutes to stroll there. Just in front of it was an interesting piece of art work known as "The Sea Bride Statue" - couldn't quite see the connection myself, but it looked nice. As the guide book says, the modern library building looks a bit like a discus half buried in the ground at an angle. Clearly, even thousands of years on, the Egyptians are still capable of producing buildings to captivate the viewer. We didn't have time to go in and explore the library so we contented ourselves with a look around the outside.

The plan was to next treat ourselves to a nice morning tea at the TBS, but by the time we had navigated our way there we still didn't really feel very hungry (did I mention the big breakfast?) so we decided to first continue on to the train station and buy our tickets for the 2:00pm train back to Cairo. This time, knowing that the cheaper 2nd Class Air-con cars were perfectly acceptable we didn't even enquire after a 1st Class fare. By the time we made it back to TBS we at least felt we could do some justice to treating ourselves - so we did, by ordering a couple of cakes and a cappuccino and sitting at an upstairs table. As we approached the end of our trip it was a nice indulgence.

The ornate front room of the hotel.

The old style lift.

It was then time to start back to our hotel to collect our bags. Rather that just walk down the same main street we took a bit of a detour and got there via a slightly different route. Back at the hotel I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos of the sumptuous interior before we left. With our packs in tow we walked back to the train station. We were early but the train was already waiting on the platform so we had plenty of time to find our designated seats and settle in before the 2:00pm departure.

When we were planning our travels around Egypt I was wondering if we might have been better to skip Alexandria to give ourselves more time at other points in our travels. However even though our time here had been limited to one night we were glad to have seen it and would have been happy to stay longer - even just for the hotel alone!