Brother Bruce is still hanging with us and with our bags tied on the roof of Mohamed's taxi we head off for Alexandria. The hotels are all booked but Mohamed has found us a "flat". Three hours later we arrive. The "flat" isn't really what we had in mind. So we head for the Metropole Hotel to get rid of some money. This beautiful old hotel is in the center of town on the Corniche overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We have that much desired sea view from our balcony to watch the goings on 3 stories below. Wow! Hot water and a bath tub too! We're in heaven.
It's very hard, almost impossible, to find a restaurant that serves beer in Egypt. Therefore, we opted for the Chinese place on the roof of the other grand old hotel in town.
The evening was perfect. A light breeze coming off the Med. The sun setting ... you get the idea. The food wasn't too bad either. We roamed the streets that evening stopping for a cappuccino in a famous old coffee house. The streets were alive. Things start to happen about nine PM in Egypt. We enjoyed watching the people of this old city do their thing.
We awoke refreshed after a night between clean sheets and a comfortable bed. Trusty Mohamed arrived on time for breakfast with us and off we went to Fort Qaitbey. Built in 1480 by Sultan Qaitbey it sits on the remains of the legendary Pharaohs Lighthouse which had been in service for 17 centuries before it was destroyed by an earthquake. Imagine a light house in service for 1700 years......mind boggling.
CLICK here
After a couple of hours of playing hide and seek we moved on to the
Alexandra Museum which is Housed in a beautifully restored Italian Villa. This is one of the best collections of Egyptian antiquities we have seen.
After a few hours we'd worked up an appetite. We finished the day with a seafood lunch overlooking the Med. Yum! The evening was spent again, wandering the old streets watching people and drinking coffee.