Getting Lost in Alexandria Hey guys today this post is going to be about exploring Alexandria actually I have no plans to go to Alexandria on this day I was planning to make it a specific trip.
But about 10 minutes after I woke up a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go with to Alexandria for a day trip, and I was not ready at all I had pretty much just woken up. But I just said okay let’s go actually to be honest for some reason in this post my memory card in my camera I decided to stop working, and I don’t know really what happened. But a lot of the files ended up getting corrupted, and I wasn’t able to use a lot of the footage that I took which is a shame. So that’s why, I’m kind of going to be talking more in this post, and of course now as, I’m posting the post the people above me in this building have decided to do all of this construction, and yep there they are now. But the post is gonna happen somehow a lot of people had described Alexandria to me as kind of the Paris of Egypt, and as being very European I can definitely see why they say that the architecture is really beautiful kind of more graceful from what people had described to me I was expecting Alexandria to kind of be this peaceful seaside city however it was very very crowded crazy insane traffic with people running back, and forth against the roads, and cars, and honking the first place that I went in Alexandria was the catacombs, and I was kind of just dropped off outside, and I went in I wasn’t sure what to do there’s kind of just this area with a lot of broken pieces of statues, and rocks, and not really any signs telling you where to go or that there’s this whole system right beneath you that you need to go see. So I was just kind of wandering around like what what even is this. But then thankfully I found my way over to this spiral stone staircase.
Map of Alexandria Photo Gallery
So you wander down the staircase you get to the catacombs, and they are this enormous system of just graves, and crypts there’s all these different little rooms, and passageways, and it’s basically like a dark creepy maze down there I did not even expect this place to be. So cool you can just wander around this place is huge it just goes on, and on, and there’s all these mazes of stone some of the doors are really narrow some of them have holes in the floor that you’re just walking over, and they look like they’d be done. So deep the catacombs were built around the 2nd to 4th centuries the perfect time period for you to kind of witness the intermingling of Egyptian Greek, and Roman culture art by far the most beautiful area of the catacomb is kind of this part where there’s some stairs leading down, and kind of this hall that opens up beautiful beautiful art, and statues on the walls, and it’s just amazing sadly though it’s flooded people can’t really easily walk in anymore. Because it’s partially underwater of course though I wasn’t gonna let that stop me. So I took off my shoes, and waded through the water, and wow, I’m so glad that I did. Because the art in that little room was by far the most beautiful area of the catacombs it was just amazing the next place in Alexandria that I went was the Citadel, and Wow this place once we walked up to it I just could not believe my eyes this did not even look real this place is amazing it’s huge, and there’s so many places to wander around this actually leads to a view of the sea okay, I’m genuinely lost now everything looks the same a dead end I just love places like this, and Mises it was just such intrigue to them cannot believe how huge this place is every single door that, I’m walking by, and there’s a lot is another room another room in another hallway and. Because there’s so many what’s interesting about the Citadel is it was built right on top of the original location of the lighthouse at Alexandria, and it was built starting in 1477.
So this is a very old structure even though I has been remodeled, and reconstructed a bit over the years I genuinely got lost in here. Because it is so massive there was a woman that was working in there, and I was kind of using her as a marking point like okay I walked past her a minute ago, and now I need to turn here then I realize maybe she’s moving I don’t know if she’s moving or staying in the same place this is helping you’re not yeah I got really lost in there, and then right outside the Citadel is this beautiful view of the sea, and the ocean, and the water is surprisingly blue it’s just beautiful now I am walking underneath the Citadel in this huge hallway there’s no one here this place is enormous really actually impossible to see all gonna go further walking on the walls I suppose that’s around the Citadel, and this is just amazing. Because you have a view of the gorgeous Citadel you have the view of the ocean this way, and then all of Alexandria is kind of stretched out in a circle around the Citadel okay leaving the Citadel now this place is awesome be sure to visit if you come to Alexandria. So now we’re going somewhere else I don’t know where yet I asked a taxi driver to take me somewhere for lunch, and he asked do you want tourist food or local food, and of course I said local food it was pretty cool he led me down this really interesting actually kind of dark, and crowded street to this place where they were selling I didn’t even know all this types of fish, and seafood about this huge meal or ate the third highlight of my trip to Alexandria was something that I was really really looking forward to which was going to the new Library of Alexandria as you right now the original Library of Alexandria was one of the wonders of the ancient world, and as a huge enormous reader, and book nerd I am still sad when I think about it being destroyed. So I don’t want to get onto this topic however the new Library of Alexandria is very modern it was built in 2002 as soon as I walked inside I was just amazed, and very impressed by the architecture in there it is extremely modern a very very modern architecture in here just now wandering, and looking at all of the books, and then we drove back to Cairo, and yeah that was my time in Alexandria the Citadel in the catacombs especially were just. So incredible just two mazes basically that we’re very different from each other, and I just love mazes.
Because you get to explore, and you’re not really sure what’s around the next corner, and just all of this history, and all. So different from other places in Egypt. Because these things were not ancient Egyptian they’re a bit later yeah I really enjoyed my time in Alexandria as always thank you guys so much for reading, and I will see you next time in another Egypt post of coming up very very soon bye.
