Alexandria abides in many places to visit and beautiful beaches to walk on their sand, but I’m sure that Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the first thing that gets in your mind when I first mention Alexandria. Bibliotheca Alexandrina was reopened in 2002 in a brand new catchy design and in a big festival that fits the great event.

Taking a look at the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina we’ll see that it contains:

The main Library that hold millions and millions of books and divided into many sections like rare books and special collections, arts and literature, history , internet archive, multimedia and audio- visual materials, daily newspapers and magazines, and many more. There are also Permanent Museums about impressions of Alexandria, Arabic Calligraphy, the history of printing, etc. Of course we can’t forget the books and gifts shop if you want to get a special souvenir mixed with some culture and art.

Outside we will find the Conference Center that also has temporary art galleries held there. The amazing Planetarium where you can see shows about outer space and feel like you’re really not on earth. For children we have the Exploratorium to refresh their knowledge of science. Moving to my favorite spot the Cluturama, a culture panorama with 9 screens that gets you inside the history of Egypt over 5000 years if not more .

All of that and more interesting stuff will be waiting for you once you get into the library. So why don’t you pack your stuff and give it a visit?! It worth going to.

Ever been to Alexandria? If yes, have you been to Al-Montazah Park? If you haven’t been there before then you’ve never been to Alexandria.

Let me tell you why, Al Montazah Gardens is one of the biggest spots-if not the biggest- in Alexandria along the courniche. It belongs to the royal family of Mohammed Aly which ruled Egypt for over 100 year, and now –and after king Farouk has left Egypt- it’s open for public to visit and enjoy what’s in it only for 5LE (almost 1$)

Al Montazah Park is located in region called Al Montazah -named after the park’s name- and it’s in the east of Alexandria. In 1892 king Abbas II built a large palace there and called it “Salamlek”. But in year 1932 king Fouad built a larger palace and called it “Haramlek”, beautiful gardens were made with a permission of King Farouk who also asked to build a bridge across the sea so he could see the whole place.

The park has many gates most important 2 of them are one by the sea and the other is by the train. Talking a walk inside the Gardens of Al-Montazah you’ll see a lot of green areas and that the gardens are perfectly organized. And it has a beach called “Aida” which is considered the best beach of Alexandria, there’s also plenty of hotels around the area if you’d like to stay near the place like “Sheraton” and inside there’s the Helnan Palestine Hotel, and El Salamlek Palace Hotel.

Feel hungry? No problem as there you can find McDonald’s where you can sit and have your meal or take it away, Al-Montazah has also clubs where you can practice your favorite sport, and places to have weddings held at. So what I’m trying to say here is that Al-Montazah is a complete city inside the city of Alexandria.

Growing up in the sticks, I never imagined that I’d ever get to see the Pyramids of Giza, let alone crawl inside one of them. But let’s back up for a moment (have you guys gotten the impression by now that I can’t tell anything in a linear fashion?) – I was pretty much exhausted from my first day running around Cairo that I had plans to “just lie down for an hour” which turned into 12. Things like that happen from time to time.

I had an ambitious plan – get up early and go hit the Pyramids before it got too hot out. Temperatures in Cairo were in the 90’s range with the sun and the dryness sucking the water out of you. I loaded up with 2 liters of water with plans to buy more while I was there and left the hotel around 7:20am in order to catch them as they opened at 8am. The upside of staying close to the Pyramids is that I thought I could walk it, which upon retrospect, isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done (in a long line of stupid things I’ve done). As I’m fond of saying, the map showed that it was “only two inches” away and it was a good 30 minute walk.

Like anything in Egypt, there’s the general admission and always additional entry fees to all the cool stuff. It was 50 Egyptian Pounds (US$9) to get into the Pyramids and another 100 Egyptian Pounds to go enter Cheops. I paid for my separate admission fee and queued up like a good tourist. There was no photography allowed (they had people confiscating and holding cameras) along with wanding with a handheld metal detector. It sort of ruined my day – I was so hoping that I could sneak in my pocket camera to get a shot or two. I don’t know how these ‘tards got in and took photos, but I’m jealous. Maybe things have changed.

We entered Cheops and crawled inside what amounts to a 3 foot high passageway that was probably 150 feet long and at a 40 degree incline. It made a great hike climb, considering it was by far the most humid place I’ve ever been in. My highly scientific estimate was approximately 4 billion percent humidity inside. I did score some serious cool points with my badass Fenix flashlight and lit the way. Eventually we got into the King’s Chamber, where the humidity felt like it tripled. We spent some time looking inside and it didn’t hit me until later that – holy shit, I’m in one of the Great Fucking Pyramids! Getting down was more of a hassle – it was sort of scary and a bit claustrophobic. After about 10 minutes, I got out of the Great Pyramids of Cheops, grabbed my bag, paid my baksheesh and realized that I was drenched in my own sweat. I pounded a liter of water and felt like I got my ass kicked. Also, your legs will take a pounding. Even with my awesome quads from cycling and enduring things in the past like Kilimanjaro and other long hikes, this was something new. My legs were beat and it took a few days to recover.

At the back of the Great Pyramid of Cheops is the Solar Boat Museum. It was designed to carry Khufu’s mummy across the Nile for burial. I was amazed at the level of craftsmanship that was displayed and even more impressed by the renovation of the boat itself. It was pretty cool. When people packed for the afterlife, they didn’t leave things behind. I only wish someone would bury me with a Santa Cruz 52’ or a J130 for the afterlife so I can go sail when I want to. His boat was roughly 150 feet long. Some guys get all the luck.

Chefre and Menakure were equally cool Pyramids. It’s hard to say something original about them, but I sat and took it all in. I wondered what it would be like to be here during the building and what it cost in terms of lives, materials and time. I’ve read a good number of books on pyramid building theories, essays on what comprised the workforce, and the effort involved (whomever calculated the effort in calories is a lot cooler than I am.) It must have been something to sit and watch this during construction with the thousands of workers involved, and the thousands of people who supported the laborers. It would have been something to just sit and watch.

After a few hours of walking around (mental note: The Pyramids aren’t really walkable, and you’re asking for trouble if you decide that riding a camel/horse is awesome.) Like any of the cool open-air museums that Egypt has to offer, they also have people who are more than willing to pose for photos, let you into “closed” things and lead you around as impromptu tour guides for cash. If you’re planning a tour of the Giz Plateau, it’s probably a good idea to bring small notes (LE10, or $1.80) for baksheesh. Everyone’s up for it, including the police. In a way, it’s much like Chicago – a favor or a few offered cigarettes might get the police to turn a blind eye or cut you some slack.

The Sphinx was pretty damn slick. I’m not entirely sure what it was to represent, but again the craftsmanship was definitely something to behold. The problem that I had was I’m trying to deconstruct and then reconstruct this from an engineer’s perspective, then expand that into project planning. So I’m wondering – what sort of person got to work on the Sphinx? How long did it take? How many people? What were they trying to build and why? In a way, spending time with the Pyramids and the Sphinx were maddening. Every question I had answered had 20 more come up.

I left the Giza Plateau after about 6 hours and exited near the Sphinx. And as fate or fortune smiled upon me, I stumbled across a Pizza Hut. It clearly was a sign, so I made a beeline towards the PH and had a nice meal, making it my 22nd country I’ve had PH in. It’s quite sad, but it hit the spot.

I got back to the hotel, crashed by the pool, tried to push fluids as best as I could and took a taxi to Giza Station to catch my overnight train to Luxor. I was looking forward to an overnight train ride – I had my own cabin (I was willing to share, but I didn’t get a bunkmate) and managed to get a decent night’s sleep. I was thinking of the Valley of the Kings and it was time to get there.

Photo “Giza pyramids” by feelix on Flickr