Alexandria, Egypt

After a one-week whirlwind tour of Upper Egypt in November 2010, I came back in January 2011 for work and decided to check-out Alexandria and the Sinai Peninsula. My interest in Alexandria increased after watching Agora last year and then being surprised to find that this amazing movie was being blocked from cinemas in the United States. Also, I had heard that both Alex and Sinai were rather peaceful places for tourists compared to the hassle of Cairo and Upper Egypt.

I arrived by train in Alex and had no trouble walking toward the sea to the Metropole Hotel thanks to real-time maps on my iPhone. I was not happy that the Metropole folks had bumped me into their sister hotel down the road, but it turned-out to be another of these historic buildings with quaint (read:dangerous) elevators, giant rooms with high ceilings and a great view from the roof-top restaurant. I immediately headed out for a seafood dinner at Rakoda.

Actually, most of the two-day visit consisted of walking from one seafood restaurant to another. The best food I had was at the former palace of King Farouk (who was kicked-out partly for over-indulgence) followed by Om Ali dessert at a nearby bar. Alexandria is a nice place to unwind and explore modern Egyptian life without harassment from taxi drivers, but the only real site to see is the new library... which is just a library.