AlexandriaVisiting modern Alexandria is like opening a novel near the end and randomly reading a page . It cannot really be appreciated without knowing what went before. Of course one can enjoy it at face value; the smell of sea and exhaust, the view of the crescent harbour,

the morning and evening sun pinking the cream buildings along the waterfront for miles, the stroll along the Corniche with crowds of Alexandrians, the taste of fresh seafood, the exploration of narrow streets, the grandness of wide boulevards, the architecture of the new library, the feel of autumn weather on the Mediterranean. But there is constant allusion to previous events and you really feel like you have missed the best part of the story if you don’t flip back to the beginning of the novel and catch-up.

Ancient Alexander is described by the Lonely Planet guide book as ‘almost as intangible as Atlantis…a place of legendary status connected to half remembered tales of Cleopatra, the Seven Wonders and the great library.’ The city captures the imagination, sending it back and forward in time, fascinated by the different faces that Alexandria has worn during the centuries since its founding by Alexander the Great in 331BC. While the streets of Atlantis are currently unavailable for exploration, Alexandria has not fallen into the sea –yet.

As we sat one evening at the window of an upstairs restaurant looking out at the lights of the city curving around the dark water of the harbour, I imagined watching the lights melt away as time turned backwards through Egyptian independence, English occupation, Napoleon’s landing, Ottoman-Turkish rule, Arab conquest, the rise of Christianity, Roman times, back to the Greek Pharaohs; the ancient city where the lights were few and the lighthouse bright. The city shrinks and grows as her outskirts, walls and population ebb and flow with the fortunes of the times.
Later that evening while drinking tea out of a glass cup, the taste of the fresh sprigs of mint and sweetness of sugar in my mouth, I read Harry E. Tzalas, a Greek Alexandrian describe the resurrection of the city:‘Like dreams where anything is possible, the modern works of man are erased and the neighbourhoods of the past re-emerge…Great mosaics made up of priceless stones taken from generation after generation, and yet perfectly matching. The district of Brucheion is unconcerned by the presence of the Basilica of Saint Athanasios or the Serapeum rubbing shoulders with the Mosque of Omar, the steeples and the minarets in the neighbourhood of the Museion, the Timonium, the Caesareum, the Arsinoion. They were all places of worship weren’t they? They were inhabited by gods made in the image of man.
The majestic avenues of Alexandria stand alongside the narrow alleyways of the Arab city, perfectly in tune with each other, enclosed as they are by the wild sea and mellowed by the desert. This is, I say, the Alexandria searched for in vain by the foreigners who have loved and praised her without knowing her.’ from the short story Alexandrea ad Aegyptum in Farewell to Alexandria by H.E. Tzalas.

I wanted to walk Alexandria with past and the present around me all at once. I stood at the door of Qayt Bey Fort, built during Ottoman times on the site of the lighthouse, touching granite columns that were originally part of the building that rocked the ancient world and saw the Pharos, the lighthouse above, as it was before the earthquake plunged into the sea. In the streets constantly wondering if I might be standing over the ruins of the Library, the Museion, Alexanders’s Tomb, Cleopatra’s Palace or the sites of a thousand historical events and other pieces of history buried beneath the present city.