The Silent Room

After a light snack at the Lion Park’s cafeteria, we continued the rest of the journey in which I fell asleep. When my eyes opened, I was greeted by the beautiful splendor of the Mediterranean port city of Iskandariah, or better known as Alexandria.

Being a port city of the Mediterrinean Sea, Alexandria is very much like various other port cities in the world. It is named after its founder, the legendary Alexander the Great, and has been an important contributor to the development of Egypt from ancient times. Its ports have been receiving merchants of various origins, the Greeks, Romans, Dutch and Portuguese. As such, it has cultivated a vibrant history that is reflected in its classical and modern architecture and culture.

Our first stop in Alexandria is the Citadel of Sultan Qaitbay, a grand fortress overlooking the Mediterranean and stood very close the site of the Fallen Lighthouse of Alexandria – a former wonder of the ancient world. The fortress itself is a huge complex and we got the chance to go inside and explore a little bit.

Being a fortress, it appears to have been built with influences of European castle design, as you can see here. I shot quite a lot of picture but it wasn’t so bright inside the citadel so not that many pictures turned out so well.

I peeked out some of the many windows in the citadel, some are just plain decorative windows while others are very thin slits inside small chambers that were used as archers’ posts. I was looking out on of those thin ‘sniping’ windows when I myself became some sort of sniper upon seeing this;

I can almost imagine how many girls would be swooning over this – paktoh-ing while overlooking a vast blue sea. Oh well. We left the citadel feeling satisfied and went for a short sight-seeing tour. Alexandria is truly a city filled with wonderful and vibrant colours.

Even the kebab man looks interesting!

We then proceeded to our next stop, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, built upon the essence of the ancient Library of Alexandria. It is the second oldest library in the world, with the first being the library of the Al-Azhar University.

The Bibliotheca itself is a modern structure, and it was designed by the winner of an architectural contest held by the UNESCO and its main highlight is a huge curving wall made from solid blocks of granite. What makes this granite wall special is the fact that it’s carved with phrases from 120 languanges of the world – ancient AND modern.

We went inside to wow ourselves even further but there aren’t really any interesting pictures :p But I thought this statue of some unknown deity looks pretty cool.

We left the library and had a lovely seafood lunch [I'm not smashpOp, I don't blog food pictures :p] and our Egyptian driver wanted us to take a walk to let the food go down, so he took us to visit the beautiful gardens of the Montaza Palace.

Being a garden, everyone in the group went apeshit posing with all the flowers and trees before going ‘cheese!’ and all generic picture taking routine. But really, it’s a beautiful place and it was pleasant way to close our tour of Alexandria before another long drive home.

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The Egypt Travelogs Series:

1. Cairo (The Great Pyramids)
2. Road to Alexandria (Asfour Crystal Palace, Lion Park Animal Hospital)
3. Alexandria (Qaitbay Citadel, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Montaza Palace Gardens)
4. Return from Alexandria (Local fruits and produce)
5. West Luxor (Temple of Karnak)
6. East Luxor – Part One and Two (Colossi of Memnon, Ramesseum, Temple of Hatshepsut, Alabaster factory)
7. The Nile – Part One and Two (Edfu Bazaar, Life along the along the Nile)
8. Kom Ombo (The Twin Temples of Kom Ombo)
9. Road to Abu Simbel (Shooting star, desert skies)
10. Abu Simbel – (The Greater Temple of Abu Simbel)
11. Aswan – (Unfinished Obelisk, Felluca ride)

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