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SCMP Reporter

Attempting to get into the wrong car of a sexually segregated tram was an inauspicious start to my journey. Tram travel in Alexandria is never a dull experience.

   At only 10 piastres (HK$1.5) a ride, even by Egyptian standards trams are cheap and get crowded to an extent even Hong Kongers might find disconcerting.

  Many of my journeys were spent dodging elbows and marvelling at how the group of women wreathed from head to foot in black cotton in the all-female car in front were managing to breathe in the crush.

   The tram juddered, clanked and clanged with a noise totally disproportionate to its speed, and our progress along the harbour front resembled that of an asthmatic snail.

  My destination was one of King Farouk's former palaces, which now houses a collection of royal jewels.

   It is an extraordinary testimony to the luxurious lifestyle and dubious taste of the regime overthrown by the 1952 revolution which swept Colonel Nasser to power.

   Solid sliver trowels vied with gilded tea strainers in a fascinating display that ranged from the exquisitely beautiful to the shamelessly kitsch.

   The Art Deco style bathroom in the guest side revealed tiles adorned with a gratuitous display of very naked and very chubby nymphs overlooking cast iron shower units in a room large enough to contain a public swimming pool.

   Most bizarre of all was a cracked plastic powder box which wouldn't have been saleable at even the most wretched expat leaving sale - except for the fact that it was mounted with 24 diamonds forming the initials of the first wife of King Fuad.

   The Zizenia Palace housing the jewel collection was, for all its psuedo-Baroque splendour and gaudy painted allegories on the ceiling, to prove a mere hovel compared to Farouk's other place by the sea, the Montaza Palace.

   Built at the turn of the century, the latter is pure Disneyland, a white and pink fantasy of grandiose columns, exaggerated arches and pert towers.

   It is a shame that only the gardens are open to the public, since past performance suggests that this king-sized pad must be endowed with the mother of garish interiors.

    If Alexandria has been the summer resort of the Egyptian elite for more than a century it is strangely bereft of overseas visitors, bar the odd wealthy Gulf sheikh.

   When I stopped a couple in the street to ask directions, they asked me if I was a tourist.

   When I confessed that I was, the husband, a young journalist, expressed surprise: 'This is very strange. We have so few. Why do you come here?'. Probably for the same reason that Alexandria throngs with Egyptian holiday-makers.

    The refreshing sea breezes and sandy Mediterranean beaches make such a pleasant change from the perpetual smog and inescapable grime of Cairo, that it has long been Egypt's number one domestic holiday destination.

   You can breathe in Alexandria. A walk along the beach reveals a microcosm of Egyptian society.

   Elderly couples lick cones of buffalo milk ice cream. Fully clothed women wade into the sea rather than cause offence by revealing their bare skin to public view.

   Most bizarre of all was the sight of an entire family crammed on to a pedalo. Raised up on the central dais, as if enthroned, sat an enormous matriarch draped in a billowing white head-dress.

   On either side sat two men wearing swimming trunks and pedalling furiously. Precariously balanced on a ledge at the back of the pedalo facing the opposite direction were their wives, both clasping small children.

    The main reason for the neglect of Alexandria by foreign visitors is that so much of the city's ancient glory has crumbled to nothing.

   Built by Alexander the Great in 332BC, Alexandria was the political, cultural and economic capital of the eastern Mediterranean for more than seven centuries, and was eclipsed only by Rome in the empire.

   It was here that Antony wooed Cleopatra, that Ptolomy Philadelphus built the 150-metre high lighthouse of Pharos, one of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and it was here that scholars from across the Classical Mediterranean came to study in the huge library with its half million scrolls.

   However, the coming of Christianity saw the temples torn down and the library destroyed amid a bloody riot on the streets.

   The city had already decayed severely at the time of the Arab invasion in the seventh century, when Cairo usurped Alexandria's place as the capital of Egypt.

   Precipitous decline followed, and the lighthouse was destroyed, partly by successive earthquakes and partly by the greed of a treasure-hunting caliph.

    Yet those who forsake Alexandria in a mad rush south to the Pharaonic monuments down the Nile valley miss out on much, for the varied fragments of the city's past that remain are fascinating hints at its former magnificence.

   Most pathetic of all is the so-called Pompey's Pillar, a solitary Corinthian column standing atop the foundations of the main temple and library.

   Surrounded by decapitated statues and a pair of weather-worn sphinxes, it is impossible to imagine that this insignificant piece of stone was once part of the greatest centre of scholarly endeavour in the Hellenic world.

   The dismal atmosphere around these melancholy monuments is not helped by the fact that the site is surrounded by one of Alexandria's poorer districts.

   Slum is a value-laden term, but it was inescapable that the people who lived in the crumbling tenements alongside were poor.

   The green paint on the shutters was peeling and faded; the plaster fronts were cracked and disintegrating. Huge amounts of washing hung from each window. A woman tipped a plastic bowl of dishwater out of a fifth floor window into the litter strewn street opposite as I walked to the catacombs nearby.

    The catacombs themselves were discovered in 1900 when a donkey and cart fell into them. They are an eerie and haunting place, a subterranean mortuary complex cut into soft yellow rock by the Romans. I entered by climbing around a spiral staircase down the side of a well, into which the bodies of the deceased were lowered on ropes before internment.

   Three levels of gloomy chambers have been excavated, although the rising water table means that only two are accessible.

   They are dank and dark and resemble a present day mortuary, with rows of recesses for the corpses from floor to ceiling. The rich were entombed in sarcophagi and the most elaborate chamber would challenge even the mind of a horror writer.

   I walked down a small set of sandstone steps, to be confronted by a pair of pillars carved out of the rock. On a nearby wall were two sculpted serpents with their mouths open, horrible little tongues forked, poised to strike.

   In the chamber beyond, water lapped gently at the base of tree sarcophagi at right angles to one another. Each tomb was carved in a peculiar fushion of Roman and Egyptian styles, with hieroglyphics and scenes of animal sacrifice to a macabre assortment of hideous bestial deities. Yet the mysteries of the catacombs are nothing compared to the other secrets and treasures which may be buried beneath Alexandria. Legend says that Alexander the Great himself and all his wealth lie somewhere under the city.

  The Pharos lighthouse suffered damage after Byzantine agents spread rumours that it was built on the site of the founder's gold. The stories were believed by the caliph, who tore down the top half of the gigantic structure.

   The picturesque 15th century fort of Qait Bey now stands on the spot guarding the eastern harbour. Other suggested sites include the mosque of Abu El Abbas, built in the Abbasid style over the tomb of a Mamaluk saint, and the mosque of An Nabi Daniel, which has a network of cellars and tenebrous tunnels underneath.

  However with or without the discovery of Alexander's coffin, said to be wrapped in gold, Alexandria itself should be discovered.



Egypt's forsaken culture capital