Tag: Alexandria

Egypt- The Land of the Pharaohs Day 11

Monday, March 25th, 2019

This morning we visited the Bibliotheca Alexandrina which opened in 2002 and replaces Alexandria’s ancient library.  The architecture is modern and it is the shape of a large, angled discus.  The library’s exterior walls are made of granite and the walls are carved with letters, pictograms, heiroglyphs and symbols.

 

The main reading room is quite impressive.

Four museums are permanent fixtures and there is a planetarium and other exhibitions.IMG_5473 This is one of the museums in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Our guide gave us a quick demonstration of the website the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has created a fantastic website with over 3 million free books on the web!  It is a resource worth checking out, https://www.bibalex.org!IMG_5467

Our next stop was the Citadel of Qaitbay which was built on the exact place where the Lighthouse of Alexandria( one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) stood.  Several different earthquakes destroyed the lighthouse.  Some of the stones from the lighthouse were used to build the Citadel.

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The floor in the mosque of the Citadel.
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The ceiling in the Citadel.

Below are a couple of pictures taken on the second level.

Watch out below! The oil fallout hole!  Read the sign below and you’ll understand.

There were some incredible views from the second level of the Citadel looking out at the Mediterranean and the city of Alexandria!

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Check out this interesting rowboat on the Mediterranean!

Even in Egypt, on our way to the restaurant we saw a Pizza Hut delivery person and they weren’t delivering in a car! 🙂

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Our lunch was at a restaurant called the Fish Market.  It was very good!  The bread was made fresh in the restaurant!

After our late lunch we returned to our hotel and many of us wanted to cross the street from our hotel and put our feet in the Mediterranean!  The hotel informed us that it was too dangerous to cross the roadway so they provided a van that transported us in groups to Hilton’s beach!

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Our hotel
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The hotel van

The temperature was in the 60s with still breezy conditions so we didn’t swim in the sea but we did take off our shoes, roll up our pants and enjoyed the surf!  One person got caught off-guard by a wave and did “swim” in the water!

We did leave our mark in the sand!

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Egypt- The Land of the Pharaohs Day 10

Sunday, March 24th, 2019

This morning we left Cairo for a scenic motorcoach ride to Alexandria which is located on the Mediterranean coast!

IMG_5354 Our guide for Alexandria, Ihab.

When we got to Alexandria, our first stop was the Serapeum and Pompey’s Pillar.

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The remains of the Temple of Serapeum.
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Pompey’s Pillar
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Underground ancient annex library of Alexandria.

After walking around the temple ruins and the artifacts garden, we headed to the Catacomb of Kom El Shoqafa which means “Mound of Shards”.  It was named this because of all of the broken pottery found in the catacombs.  Archeologists believe that family members would bring food and drink with them down into the catacombs in ancient times and they didn’t want to bring the glasses, dishes, etc… home with them so they would shatter them and leave them in the catacomb!

It was asked that visitors do not take any pictures in the Catacomb of Kom El Shoqafa and we respected that request.  It was very interesting to walk down the stone steps which consisted of 3 levels of cut solid rock and the rock-cut tombs.  This Catacomb is considered one of the seven wonders of the middle ages.

We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean Sea!IMG_5410

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Part of our tour group at the restaurant.

We had a late lunch and by the time we finished it was time to get to our hotel, the Hilton Alexandria, and check in!  Our hotel was located across the street from the Mediterranean sea.

Some of our group had rooms that looked out over the sea.  Our room faced the city but it was a suite so we had plenty of room and a nice balcony!  We wanted to walk over to the Mediterranean and put our feet in the water but it was extremely windy and the waves were really high, so we decided we would head over there tomorrow when the weather was to be much better!

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The view from our hotel room.