Back in the day when Meredith was visiting, the three of us decided to get out of Cairo and visit Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea.  We stayed at the Sofitel right on the Corniche (the street that follows the coastline), and enjoyed the semi-fresh sea air and semi-break from Cairo life.  Here is our hotel.  It was relatively old and had lots of charm.  I take that back.  It had lots of charm, but there is nothing “relatively old” in this whole region that isn’t about 5,000 years old.  Nevermind.

Here is the view from our hotel.

Love that landscaping.  Love it.  I love when cities go the extra mile.  Thanks, Alexandria.  Plus, look how tidy everything looks!  I was loving it!!

Here is Brandon enjoying breakfast at the hotel.  That’s right… a three-juice-breakfast.   He really likes the juice here.  Guava, mellon, lemon.  I think.

We went to the catacombs, but I don’t have any pictures from that.  They wouldn’t even let us take our camera in and after a somewhat stressful and confusing conversation, they agreed that if we relinquished our camera battery, they wouldn’t make us leave our camera in a cubby.  Whew.  But to make good on our agreement, we didn’t take a single picture, so you will all have to come and see the catacombs for yourselves.  They were really incredible.  We were told they were discovered when a donkey disappeared and was found to have fallen in a hole which turned out to be the catacombs.  We even got to see the poor donkey’s bones encased in a subterranean display.  The catacombs were truly fascinating.  Here is a link to a google image search with other people’s photos (http://images.google.com.eg/images?q=alexandria+catacombs&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=-ltES5jGI5HajQe_yoStDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQsAQwAA)  Pretty amazing.

They were partially flooded which meant we walked on rickety boards sometimes supported on bricks or buckets or something.  Given my increasing fear of water-borne trouble, I was a little nervous, especially every time I slipped  on the stone walkways that have been worn super smooth by lots of tourists.  Oh how I wanted to avoid ending up like that donkey.

A man showed us around the catacombs and pointed out all of the places where mummies would have been, complete with gestures indicated what a moomie was and then we learned they were all in Cairo at the museum (more on that later).  I have to say, the catacombs were perhaps the highlight of our trip to Alexandria.  Really incredible.  I know I said that a lot already, but I feel the need to really emphasize it, especially considering my lack of pictures.

We spent a lot of time walking around Alexandria.  It was a lot of fun walking along the Corniche, seaspray and all.  Here are some photos…

For some reason we were hoping it was a really big fish.

Instead it was about five million little ones.  These cats were thrilled!  Lots of people were coming over to the stone wall by the shore to purchase grocery bags full of fish for only a few pounds.  Fish were everywhere.  Everywhere… Getting stepped on, flopping into puddles, waiting for their puddle to fill up and trickle back into the sea, getting eaten by cats.  Ya know.

And this is a goat that was tied up and abandoned at a lightpost on a very busy street.  He got into a fight with a dog.  We didn’t stick around.

Apparently this used to be what was referred to as a rubble heap.  When it was cleared for the construction of a new building in the 1960s, they discovered that it was actually the site of incredible Greco-Roman ruins.  It is still being excavated, but we were able to see much of it.  The small amphitheater was really fascinating.  When you step into a certain spot (marked with a stone almost in the center of the space), the acoustics change and amplify your voice, but as soon as you take another step off the stone, the amplification is gone.  It was pretty impressive.

Here we are being amazed.

And this picture almost deserves its own post.  I love, love, love the camouflaging of this plywood building.  It almost looks like it fits in.

But seriously, the ruins were amazingly preserved.  The mosaic floors were beautiful and it was easy to imagine what it would have looked like in all its splendor.

We purchased additional tickets to see the more intact mosaic floors in the Villa of the Birds.  When we discovered that the Villa was locked, Brandon went to get someone to let us in, and came back with one of the actual archeologists who is working on preserving the mosaics.  He explained the work they are doing and their efforts to prevent water damage which is slowly destroying the mosaics.  Apparently there is an old fire station (which is itself a historic site) situated nearby, and since it is old and its pipes are possibly decaying, there is a problem with water leaking into the Greco-Roman site.  The preservator said he was working on creating his own replica of the original mosaics so that their imagery would not be lost.

Here is Meredith looking cute.  Hi Meredith!  We miss you in Cairo!

Get to work laying those bricks!  Gosh.

Red brick.  Who knew?!  There were also several stone bathtubs that I wish I had photographed.  They were really interesting and ranged from very simple to highly finished with metal drains.

We had a really great time in Alexandria.  It was full of history (as everything is here!) and was an interesting departure from the ancient Egyptian ruins we had already seen.

Here is Brandon and me at the train station in Alexandria.  Meredith is behind the camera.  She took most of these beautiful photos.

And what train ride would be complete without Turkish Delight!  We got some other sweets just in case we found out we weren’t the kind of people that liked Turkish Delight.  Good thing, because it is gelatinous, and I’m just not into gelatinous sweets (except for these).  But it was fun trying it!  It’s the white stuff covered in powdered sugar.

And here is my towem again.  Hi Mer!