the pearl of the med

I loved Alexandria! It is a breath of fresh air after the hecticness and claustrophobia of Cairo. The city is still manic, as ever in Egypt, however it opens up to a beautiful natural harbour to the north which is filled with lots of brightly coloured traditional fishing boats; it has a more relaxed atmosphere about it, perhaps that sea air calms them down a bit!

colonial cairo

The main reason i came to Cairo is because my grandad lived here for 3 years during the second world war. On the whole i think he had quite a 'good war' as they put it, with that i mean he was never in combat. So i was excited to come here to find out a bit about the city that he lived in and talked so fondly about. I expected the architecture to be a mixture of Islamic and colonial and indeed it was, but really i found it quite unique in style. I spent most of my time in downtown Cairo because i was staying there; an area which was designed by french architects with wide boulevards and a grid layout. It was laid out in the late 19th century and the buildings are reminiscent of Paris at that time although most are run down and tired (see above a picture of Midan Talaat Harb, Downtown Cairo -note this photograph was not taken by me). The street i was staying on however, Emad El-Din Street, i found the buildings to be of a different style and incredibly imposing. The architecture a strange blend of European and Islamic resulting in these tall stone buildings which could almost be described as Islamic brutalism, if there is such a thing.

ancient egypt

Well I'm not sure what to say about the Pyramids. We all know they are one of the only remaining ancient wonders of the world, we know what they look like and we know a bit about the Egyptians, but for most of us thats about it. It's strange arriving somewhere that you have only ever read about in books, to see it in real life brings with it a jolt; the stones that were used to build these monuments, well each one is about 8 times the size of a concrete block. The pyramids are huge, they are bigger than you would ever imagine them to be.

The Egyptian civilisation formed around 3150BC and over the next three millennia it became one of the greatest and most powerful civilisations in the world. The Pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs (rulers of ancient Egypt) and their queens (although the queens pyramids are tiny, a tad unfair!). I visited the three largest and best preserved of the 30 that remain today, they sit at Giza, which is just outside the city of Cairo. It is really quite amazing that monuments and tombs of the Pharaohs continue to stand intact today, nearly 4000 years after they were built. I went inside the great pyramid; you have to climb steep steps through a narrow tunnel with no fresh air and eventually you arrive in the tomb, which is really pretty tiny. No bigger that the average kitchen. Unbelievable that these massive massive monuments were built for this purpose.

Walking down the street trying to find the pyramids and all of a sudden, oh there they are!

As you are walking around Cairo, now and again you come across old ruins that have clearly been very important buildings in their day. Its quite tragic that they are not being preserved. One example is in the photograph below, this wall is only just standing and i would say that in a few years it will be gone. It has the most beautiful hieroglyphics carved into the stonework.

Have you ever been to a pizza hut with a more impressive view!!

out and about in cairo

It's not a big city, it's a huge city. With a population of 6.98 million it is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, oh and don't forget the 10 million who live just outside the city. On hearing these sorts of figures my thoughts always drift back to Scotland; with a population of 5 million, how very small we are!

I stayed in the heart of Cairo and my goodness, it really was an adventure from start to finish. If i wasn't getting lost then i was getting chased by one of the friendly locals for yet another chat; it is a city in which you cannot stay still for long. The traffic can only be described as crazy, pedestrians quite literally take their life in their hands every time they want to cross the road (which is usually at least 4 lanes) as there is not a crossing to be seen in the city. I was petrified but soon realised if i didn't just do as the Cairenians do then i wasn't going to get anywhere..... i decided every time i crossed i would use a local as a buffer, it worked a treat! And the horns, well they were surely invented for this city; from morning until night the sound of the car horn is a constant hum in the background, it almost becomes melodic; a melody that lulls you to sleep at night and wakes you in the morning. Cairo is truly a 24hr city.

Old Cairo by night. I loved it. It is actually only a tiny part of the city but is the oldest and to me the most interesting. A maze of narrow cobbled streets with traditional coffee houses and old men sitting smoking shisha, it is what you imagine Cairo to be.