Monasteries, Alamein, Alexandria
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2004
1
19
20
Trip End
Jan 24, 2005
Alexandria,
Egypt
Monday, November 22, 2004
On the way to a hotel resort in Alamein, a tourist town smack dab on the Mediterranean, we stopped off to see the Coptic Monasteries of Wadi Natrun and, most notably, St. Bishoi and the Monastery of the Syrians. Both monasteries had quaint-looking monks, old defensive citadel structures with drawbridges, and crazy iconic wall paintings that they were very proud of. The Syrian monastery in particular dated from the 7th-8th centuries CE, and the monks told us a number of stories about when Christ visited them in person, as well as that the giant tree in the courtyard had grown from the staff of one of their saints (personally, I think they had all been fasting a little too much and were in a constant state of hallucination)
Alexandrian Greco-Roman Art
. The monastery also houses what is said to be the best examples of Egyptian art from the 7-14th centuries (a period of little notable artistic achievement, if I do say so myself)!There is a WWI museum near Alamein that you may think about attending, though I do not recommend it.
In Alamein we stayed at the Hotel Sidi Abd-ar Rahman. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was not tourist season, and it was quite cold outside. Luckily the next morning (the 23rd, Thanksgiving!) was warm, so we did Taibo on the beach.
Alexandria, the Pearl of the Mediterranean, was founded by Alexander the Great after he conquered Egypt. According to a hodgepodge of accounts by Diodorus, Curtius, and Arrian, Alexander was making his way long the Mediterranean coast, on his way to conquer the Greek African colony of Cyrene. The Cyrenaens send a delegation to meet him and surrender, so Alex, having a little extra time to kill before going off to whup Darius and conquer the world, decided to go consult the oracle and Siwah. Before he went, however, he saw a spot that he really liked and on which he wanted to build a city in his own name. In traditional Greek fashion, however, he could not found a city without consulting an oracle, so he went and asked the oracle for permission. He got it, of course, and founded Alexandria. He was never to return there, and it is rumored his body was buried in the vicinity by Ptolemy- one of his generals and the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for 300 years- and his tomb may still be there, underneath the waters of the Mediterranean.
You got that?
