Alexandria

When the name of Alexandria is mentioned I feel a bright light in my eyes.  It is as if Alexander the Great is back to life again,  this young great leader came to Egypt to fight against the Persians who have  invaded Egypt a few years before

When Alexander  entered Memphis the ancient  capital of Egypt  at 333 BC, he was welcome and  hailed as a king by the Egyptians and   he was a quite clever diplomat as  he showed great respect and veneration to the gods of  ancient Egypt especially, god Ptah  the patron god of Memphis. afterwards  Alexander  then decided to visit the famous Oracle temple of Amon,  located in the oasis of Siwa in order to consult the hear   about his destiny.

Alexander while heading to the temple,   he marched down parallel to the Canopic branch of the Nile; where  he  was then stopped to rest  when he reached an area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Lake of Mariott, it was  an old Egyptian village called “Re-qdt”  and  that was named in Greek Racotis. (Its actual location today is the area of Tel Bab Sadrah (Karmouz)).

He decided  to built a town there named  after his name and yet  this was the chosen site of Alexandria ,he  had an architect named  “Dinocratis” to  plan the new city. It was the birth of a great new city.

After a while, the great Macedonian leader left the city to Siwah to consult the oracle of the Great temple of Amon and after this journey he left Egypt to fight the Persians in Asia. After his triumphal campaigns, Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 A.C without seeing the city which bears his name.

In fact during the reign of Ptolemy I (Soter) the Savior, and his successor Ptolomy II ( Philadelphus) the building of the city was accomplished and it was as the main capital. 

The Architect Dinocratis planned the city in a form of a chess board; two main streets interlaced vertically and horizontally extending from east to west as well and from north to south. The city was divided into squares like a chess board.  Alexandria had 5 districts, each one named after a letter of the first five letters in the Greek Alphabet; A (Alpha), B (Beta), G (Gamma), D (Delta), E (Epsilon). These 5 letters represent the initial letters of the text: “Alexander the king, the descendent of the gods, erected the city” Alpha was the royal district where the royal palaces, the main temple, the museum, the libraries, and the gardens were built,  

Beta was the district of the Greek aristocracy, Gamma was dedicated to the settlement of the Greek commoners and Delta was the district of the foreign minorities such as the Syrians, the Persians, and the Jews. While Epsilon was a district for the native Egyptians. Drinking water was supplied by a canal starting from the western Canopic branch of the Nile at a point called “Shedia” about 27 km. to the south of Alexandria.  The water was stored in Cisterns; some of them remained until our modern times.         

At the beginning of the Roman period about 30 BC,  a new city was built here  by the Romans bearing the name of “Nicopolis” which means the city of Victory in order to commemorate the victory of Octavian over Mark Anthony in Aktium in 31 B.C.

Most of it was destroyed or vanished for several reasons including disturbances, civil wars, revolts, natural disasters, subsoil water and  unplanned urbanization etc. 

Among those fabulous monuments which were mentioned by ancient Greek books, are the Enclosure walls and the gates of the city, the lighthouse, the Great Library, the Royal Necropolis including the Tomb of Alexander and the museums.

Today he remaining monuments of ancient Alexandria are different cemeteries scattered in many various  locations, some of them date back to the Ptolemaic period such as El Shatby, Moustafa Kamel, El Anfoushy, El Wardain, While others date back to the Roman period such as the tombs of Kom El Shouqafa (called the  the Catacombs), the tomb of Tigran,  Pompeii's pillar ,Tomb of Silvago and the cemetery of  El Qabbary which was recently discovered. 

There are other important monuments of the city that date back to various periods such as the Serapium, the Roman Theatre, the temple of El Ras El Souda,  Citadel of Quaitbay, the Jewelry Museum, Mosque of EL Naby Daniel, Mosque of El Moursi Abou El Abbas and the Memorial of the unknown soldier.

Kom El Shouqafa( called the  Catacombs)

 Pompeii's pillar

Citadel of Quaitbay.

How to reach Alexandria:

There are two ways to reach Alexandria  from Cairo:

 By train:

There is  train every three hours that departs from Ramsis station in  Cairo.

 By bus :

listed below you will find the bus schedule , Cairo/ Alexandria.