Fifth Day in Egypt: Returning to Cairo

Pompey's Pillar and the Temple of Serapeum

Our final day in Alexandria began with another breakfast on the 11th floor of the TOLIP Hotel:

Seeing as the modern city has been built over the old one, it came as no surprise that there was an archaeological site (the Catacombs of Mostafa Kamel) next to the hotel:

Another Uber ride through a series of narrow streets and alleys brought us on this Tuesday New Year's Eve morning to the site of Pompey's Pillar and the Temple of Serapeum. The 27 meter (89 feet)-high granite column, rising out of the ruins of the Temple of Serapeum, is one of Alexandria's most well-known sites. It was erected in 291 to support a statue of the Roman emperor Diocletian:

Underneath the column are steps leading down into the temple ruins. The temple was dedicated to Serapis, the Greek/Egyptian god of Alexandria. It also served as a sort of branch of the Great Library of Alexandria. The temple and the library were destroyed by Christians in 391, leaving only the pillar standing:

An altar on which animals were sacrificed:

Most of the above information on the temple was gleaned from my Lonely Plant Egypt guidebook. Only a little was provided by the police officer standing guard at the pillar who appointed himself as our guide of the underground chambers. My LP guide states "the guards can be slightly pushy here", which is something of an understatement. Our "guide" was friendly enough, but his English was very limited. When it came time for baksheesh, our monetary offers were deemed insufficient (he had "five babies" to feed, and I was an American, after all), until we reached agreement on an amount of LE150 ($9.40). Which seemed like a bargain considering the officer was carrying an automatic weapon:

Cats, cats, everywhere cats...:

From the pillar, it was a six-minute walk to our next destination...:

...the Catacombs of Kom Ash Shuqqafa:

These catacombs were discovered by accident in 1900 (after a donkey had fallen through the ground) and are the largest Roman burial site found so far in Egypt. Constructed in the 2nd century CE, the catacombs consist of three tiers of chambers and tombs cut into bedrock to a depth of 35 meters (115 feet). Photography isn't allowed inside, so the following photos are courtesy of Google:

https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/9/45153/Alexandrian-catacombs-A-look-into-Hellenistic-past

http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/01/10/catacombs-of-kom-el-shoqafa-largest-roman-burial-site-in-egypt/

http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/01/10/catacombs-of-kom-el-shoqafa-largest-roman-burial-site-in-egypt/

Photography may have been prohibited, but a lot of visitors were using their camera phones to take snaps. The following pics were taken by my wife a person whom I don't know:

Emerging back into the world of the living, we returned by Uber to our hotel for some lunch, and to wait for transport to the train station for the trip back to Cairo. With a bit of time to kill, I crossed the busy road to Stanley Beach and the Stanley Bridge:

From Sidi Gaber Train Station it was a 2¼-hour ride back to Cairo's Ramses Station:

Ramses Station was built in 1892, but the interior was redone in 2014:

This taxi didn't have enough space in the trunk to accommodate our bags, so he tied Shu-E's suitcase onto the roof. We then took off, only to have it pointed out by a passerby that the front passenger-side tire was completely flat. We had to get another cab to our hotel:

Driving away from the station:

The view from our room on New Year's Eve at the Steigenberger El Tahrir in the waning hours of 2019:

For dinner, the three of us had Egyptian-style fast food at Felfela, though not the famous tourist restaurant of that name:

Dinner was followed by some shopping for perfumed oils:

Shu-E returned to the hotel to relax, but Amber and I took a walk in the streets around the Steigenberger, close to Tahrir Square, the center of the 2011 revolution:

A statue of Midan Talaat Harb, founder of the national bank:

The streets around Tahrir Square, with their intact pavements and fashionable boutiques, were a world apart from Addis Ababa:

Finally, the two of us returned to the hotel for a nightcap in the first-floor bar:

Before you report me to Social Services, that's my beer in front of Amber. She had a hot chocolate:

When 2020 arrived, there were a few fireworks in the distance we could see from our hotel room, but if there were wild celebrations taking place in the streets of Cairo, they were being drowned out by the constant sound of angry honking car horns that is situation normal in the city's traffic. Despite the cacophony, I managed to sleep pretty well in the early hours of the new year.