Sea, seafood, coffee and Football!!
Trip Start
Oct 23, 2009
1
12
Trip End
Nov 17, 2009
Alexandria, Egypt
Friday, November 13, 2009
We took off early for the 575km drive from Siwa to Alex.
After 3 hours of mostly featureless less desert the Mediterranean hove into view and we were back to the coast.
A further 2 hours took us to El Alamein and the Commonwealth War Cemetery. We first visited the War Museum which explained the various phases of the campaign as the battles moved back and forth from El Alamein in the East to Tunisia in the West over 3 years.
With an understanding of the campaign we then went to the War Cemetery where 7000 Commonwealth Servicemen are interred
El Alamein War Museum
. A quite haunting place as we walked amongst the tombstones reading the names of the fallen, lest we forget.We then headed to Alexandria, arriving late afternoon. Our hotel was a brilliant character hotel, the shared bathrooms well and truly offset by the french windows opening out onto the Corniche and harbour.
We went for a short walk into town and then to a local seafood restaurant recommended by our tour leader, LE35 got us a huge plate of fish, prawns and calamari as well as the standard salad, rice, bread and a couple of huge plates of clams for the table. Suitably stuffed we walked back into town for ice cream (there is always room for ice cream) and back to the hotel to play cards and have a few beers.
Relaxed start the next day and we set out to see the sights of Alexandria - unfortunately, many of the things that made Alex famous no longer exist, but there is still the Catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa, Pompeys Pillar and Fort Quaitby. After the fort we walked back up the corniche, stopping for koshary for lunch, then ice cream :) and then at a juice bar where the mango juice was awesome.
Commonwealth War Cemetery
Quick cab ride and we were at the new Alexandria Library, opened in 2002 this is a stunning building fit to continue the legend of the original. Room for some 8 million books and several museums including a rare manuscript museum.
Walked back to the hotel to meet for an early dinner - headed to seafood again, this time it was a bit more expensive, chose my own fresh fish and prawns and it cost me nearly A$10!
After dinner most of us headed to a coffee shop around the corner to watch the Egypt v Algeria World Cup qualifier. The tables had been cleared out and there were rows of seats set up. We took our places and settled in with tea and sheesha to watch the game. About 100 locals were crowded in and they were delighted to have us there supporting Egypt. Lots of photos, lots of "Welcome to Egypt" and we had a great time. Egypt won 2-0 which meant they had another chance to qualify and sent the locals crazy. We followed the celebration out of the coffee shop and into the streets, everyone gathered on the corniche which was soon gridlocked with people and cars. Lots of cheering, singing and a cacophony of car horns.
We quickly became centreof attention with seemingly everyone in the city wanting photos with us. We were faced with a sea of mobile phone cameras and after about 30min it started getting a little crazy so we pulled the girls out of the crowd and headed back to the hotel, still stopping every 5-10m for more photos.
Back to the safety of the hotel we set up camp on the balcony and had a couple of beers and watched the celebrations.
