From Camels To Cosmopolitanism, This City Had It All

By Graham Howe
March 12, 2005

Graham Howe goes searching for Antony and Cleopatra on the road to Alexandria.

The desert highway runs from Cairo to Alexandria down at the coast. Risking life and limb, peasants harvest the olive trees separating the northbound and southbound lanes.

Outside the city gates, we pass the Birqash Camel Market on the very edge of the Western Desert. For centuries, caravans have travelled the length of Egypt on the Forty Days Road from the troubled region of Darfur, Sudan, to the world's biggest camel souq.

Following the Rosetta branch of the Nile after the mightiest of rivers divides north of Cairo, the highway heads into the salt marshes of the delta. Resisting the urge to follow alluring signs to the monasteries of Wadi Natrun, the battlefields of El Alamein and the city ruins of Zagazig, we zigzag past modern leisure resorts salvaged from the sands.

Our guide, Dr Wahid Moustafa Gad, identifies the old stone towers en route as colonies where farmers breed hamam (pigeon), a culinary delicacy, for Cairo's best restaurants.

Along the way he points out on the map how the Nile resembles the lotus, the symbol of Lower Egypt. The ancient Egyptians likened the delta to the flower; the oasis of al-Fayyoum to the bud, and the main river to the stem.

Two hours after leaving Cairo, we arrive at the city gates of Alexandria, the capital of Graeco-Roman Egypt founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Under Cleopatra, Alexandria rivalled Rome as the centre of the universe - and was the setting for her stormy romance with Marc Antony.

Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the Pyramids of Giza, also on the list, are in Egypt too) symbolised Alexandria's status as a beacon of culture.

Like much of ancient Alexandria - including Cleopatra's Palace, Alexander's tomb and the Great Library - the lighthouse is no more, having been toppled in the earthquake of 1303. (This may come as a shock to the unwary tourist.)

We stroll round Fort Qaitbey, a magnificent citadel built of shimmering pink marble on the promontory where the lighthouse once winked at the world. Fishermen cast a line and fishing boats bob up and down in the Mediterranean.

We visit the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, an awe-inspiring new library with space for some 8 million manuscripts. A 21st-century version of the great classical library of Alexandria, the modern glass-and-steel structure on the waterfront features giant exterior walls carved with hieroglyphs and symbols from every known alphabet.

Statues of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy overlook an architectural showpiece that symbolises the sun rising out of the Mediterranean and the rebirth of Alexandria in the late 1990s.

A city of literary traditions since antiquity, Alexandria inspired famous writers such as Lawrence Durrell (author of The Alexandria Quartet), EM Forster (Alexandria: A History & Guide) and CP (Constantine) Cavafy (the poet whose home is now a museum).

EM Forster recommended: "The best way of seeing Alexandria is to wander aimlessly about." Behaving like most tourists, we heed his advice and go looking for the past - at sites such as the Roman amphitheatre, Pompey's Pillar (aka Diocletian's Pillar) and the catacombs of Kom ash-Shuqqafa, the largest Roman burial site in Egypt.

The guidebooks warn that the Alexandria of Alexander and Cleopatra lies buried six metres underground and undersea - as well as in distant capitals. Two of the ancient city's most famous obelisks, commonly known as Cleopatra's Needles, stand by the Thames in London and in Central Park, New York.

One of the most famous exhibits in the British Museum - the Rosetta Stone, the key used to decipher hieroglyphics - comes from the nearby port of Rosetta where the Nile ends its journey 6 680km from its headwaters on the shore of Lake Victoria.

Historians say ancient Alexandria is as elusive as the fabled city of Atlantis. CP Cavafy, the poet of early-20th-century Alexandria, declares somewhat more encouragingly: "It goes on being Alexandria still. Just walk a bit along the straight road that ends at the Hippodrome and you'll see palaces and monuments that will amaze you."

Visitors will find remnants of the city's great rulers in the new Alexandria Museum. The grand Italianate villa of the American Consulate houses a fascinating collection of treasures salvaged by divers from underwater sites in the harbour late last decade.

Submerged in shallow water near Abu Qir for more than 2 000 years, these finds include a colossal granite statue of Isis, a sphinx, columns and capitals which archaeologists speculate may come from Cleopatra's palace: all of them are being exhibited for the first time.

We were looking forward to lunch after visiting the magnificent mosque of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi, where thousands of worshippers were attending Friday's midday prayers.

A port with period bars and ahwas (coffee-houses) from the early 19th century, where people play dominoes and backgammon, Alexandria is renowned for seafood such as sea bass, sole, squid, shrimp and crab.

With expectations high, we headed for the Mohamed Ahmed restaurant, a culinary landmark billed as The Great Pyramid of Alexandria. Jostling with the locals in the clattering café, we tucked into a feast of the city's native dish, foul (rhyming with "cool") Alexandria. Mashed into a paste (ta'amiyya), puréed into a dip with garlic and fried onion (besara) or with tomato, garlic and eggs (foul mesdames), the famous fava beans are a versatile legume served at breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout Egypt.

We also relish delicious mezze, frittata and fried goat's cheese - all served without any culinary pretensions on metal plates with fresh pita bread for cutlery.

"So where's the chicken?" asks one of our bemused party, "I ordered fowl." When they serve foul in Alexandria, they mean beans, beans, beans - any way you like. Of course, you could order a McFelafel (chickpea patties) at the ubiquitous McDonald's.

A popular seaside resort, the promenade at Alexandria runs for some 20km along the turquoise shores of the Mediterranean with a never-ending bar, hotel and café strip. In its modern heyday from the 1900s to the 1950s, this melting pot of the Mediterranean attracted settlers from all over the Levant.

A thriving community of 80 000 Jews lived in Egypt early last century - dwindling in the city to the 200 who still observe Shabbat at the city's pink marble synagogue.

In The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell writes in the late 1940s: "The communities still live and communicate - Turks with Jews, Arabs and Copts and Syrians with Armenians and Italians and Greeks ... the hundred little spheres which religion or lore creates and which cohere softly together like cells to form the great sprawling jellyfish which is Alexandria today."

Alexandria lost its cosmopolitan heart when many left after Gamel Abdel Nasser's revolution of 1952.

Our guide, Dr Wahid, says Alexandria has been occupied by Alexander the Great, the Greeks, Romans, Fatimids, Turks, Napoleon and the British. Today the Moorish seaside palace built by the kings of Egypt is a retreat for President Hosni Mubarak, while the lush Montazeh Palace Gardens and neighbouring Salamlek palace are open to the public and tourists.

Who could come all the way from the Cape to Cairo without going for a swim in the Mediterranean?

We head past once-grand Victorian hotels such as the Windsor Palace and the Cecil - a winter retreat for Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, Winston Churchill and the British Secret Service - and past Pastroudi's coffee shop, the haunt of literati in the 1920s immortalised in Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.

At Mamoura, the most exclusive beach suburb, taking a dip turns out to be quite a mission. After paying a toll to get past the entry boom, we pay a second toll to get on to the sand. After paying a third fee at the changing booth and a fourth for a deckchair, we're finally ready for our expensive swim, clutching tickets that cost R20.

On the beach an unusual sight awaits us: all along the high-tide mark, fully dressed adults sit in a long line of deckchairs gazing out to sea. Finding a way through the human barrier, we wade self-consciously into the waves, feeling hundreds of curious eyes upon us. We are the daily entertainment.

It is worth all the effort. We are adrift in a completely foreign culture in the Mediterranean, on the northern tip of Africa, thousands of kilometres away from Cape Town's familiar southern realms.

No one sunbathes on the sand at Alexandria, a right of way for the vendors who hawk everything you could ever need on the beach, from swimsuits, towels, sunglasses and hats to peanuts, pastries and cooldrinks.

Sitting on the edge of Africa, I recall the words of Happy Mahlangu, South Africa's ambassador to Egypt, who told me: "South Africa looks north to Africa and plays a leadership role on the continent. Egypt looks north to Europe and the US and plays a leadership role in the Middle East."

Graham Howe was a guest of EgyptAir, the Egyptian Tourist Authority and Egypt & Beyond.