Alexandria, Egypt

We returned to Egypt via Eilat and settled in a nice bungalow in Dahab - which is a great place to chill out, quite touristy but not in a hectic way. Diving in the Red Sea sounded tempting..! But I have my own fears to tackle first :s

We bussed back to Cairo, where we spent another couple of days as I was caught by a cold and had high temperature (boo). But there was not much time to waste so we headed to Alexandria, where we had a day of exploration before catching a bus to Siwa oasis.  Of course we 1st checked the library! The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003 near the site of the ancient Royal Library of Alexandria, once the largest library in the world. This one is quite awesome too!

The 1st postcard shows the El-Mursi Abul-Abbas Mosque, which looked stunning in the moonlight...Alexandria must have looked amazing back in the Ptolemaic days - everything was grand, very much like this lighthouse on the 2nd postcard - the Pharos of Alexandria. With its height between 120 and 140 meters it was for centuries the highest man-made building in the world. Sadly it was devastated in the series of earthquakes. In 1480 the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site.

In the alexandrian post-office I found new stamps, goodie :)

These were posted on the 13th of December on the way back from the oasis.