This is part of my Egypt but not the sum of it, not even the sum of my Alexandria... more to come on both...
Cosmopolitan, glorious, down-at-the-heels shabby, Alexandria has had two golden ages: intellectual capital of the classical world; later the largest port in the eastern Mediterranean in the 19th and early 20th centuries, under the house of Mohammed Ali, Good times or bad, Alexandria is still an international city. Brotherhood true believers replace the Quartet's nationalistic Copts. Consider how the history of cosmopolitan cities might tell us more life in an age of globalization than any history of a nation state.
First there was literature and travelers' journals. Now we have blogs, phot-sharing sites and online travel guides. Lost Already. a travel blog hosted on commercial travel site,visits Alexandria, Egypt. takes pictures but does not appreciate Alex. Philistines, Huxley would call them, so very meh about a city of memory and imagination rivaling New Orleans and Paris - and a place of my heart. Unlettered tourists on stopover, they cannot really know the city.
Want to know Alex? Read history, read Cavafy (even if overlooked in modern Alex).
