Catacombs in Alexandria, Egypt
/We spent a quick three days in Alexandria after our time in Cairo. To be completely honest, this is a city I should have researched a little more before visiting than I did. Maybe even just Googling it. I didn't know that the ancient lighthouse was no longer standing. I also didn't know that the Alexandria library we were planning to visit was built in the 1990s, again I was expecting to see the ancient one I learned about in history class. However, we still did see some very cool and very ancient things.
We visited three different sites in town, and they were all really cool. The first thing we visited was the Citadel of Qaitbay. This is a 15th century fort that stands on the same site as the former ancient lighthouse. While not as cool as I imagine seeing the old lighthouse, it was still a remarkable structure. We had the pleasure here of having our photo taken about 30 or 40 times by Egyptian tourists that were really impressed with our blonde hair and pale skin. We felt like celebrities, and I also understand why a lot of celebrities wear disguises when they go out in public. Once the first person asked and we agreed to a selfie, we had a literal line of people wanting to take a series of photos. First just with Samantha, then just with me, then together. It was a strange experience but they really seemed to want them, and they couldn't have been friendlier about it.
The next day we visited the catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa. This was probably our favorite thing that we saw while in Alexandria. They were discovered by accident in the early 1900s when a goat-led cart fell into a hole. They are a pretty large system of tombs about 3 floors underground. They began as private roman tombs, but locals added their own private rooms onto the original. As you can see from the photos, there is quite a bit of flooding, and we walked through some of the rooms on planks of wood set on stones just at water level. We felt like we were on the set of an Indiana Jones movie. It was really really cool.
The last thing we did was to visit the "Bibliotheca Alexandrina" or Alexandrian Library. It was built in the 90's as an homage to the ancient library that Alexandria was once home too. It is the largest library in the world, however it does not house the most books of any library. The main reading area can fit thousands of people, and the shelves hold millions of books. The library also houses several museums on the lower levels. We visited the antiquities museum as well as the ancient manuscripts and books museum. It was incredible. We saw manuscripts dating back to the 11th century, and some of the earliest translations of the Quran.
We were glad to have some time in a city that didn't have a huge number of things to see because it gave us some time to relax. After Alexandria we were heading down south to Upper Egypt to visit Aswan, Abu Simbel, and Luxor and we knew we'd have plenty of things to see and do. We'll keep you posted!
