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ALEXANDRIA
(EL-ISKANDARIYA) |
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Alexandria, princess and whore.
The royal city and the anus mundi.
- Lawrence Durrell, The
Alexandria Quartet
ALEXANDRIA turns its back
on the rest of Egypt and faces the
Mediterranean, as if contemplating
its glorious past; a hybrid city
characterized by Durrell as the
"Capital of Memory". One
of the great cities of antiquity,
Alex slumbered for 1300 years until
it was revived by Mohammed Ali and
transformed by Europeans, who gave
the city its present shape and made
it synonymous with cosmopolitanism
and decadence. This era came to an
end in the 1950s with the mass
flight of non-Egyptians and a dose
of revolutionary puritanism, but
Alexandria's beaches, restaurants
and breezy climate still attract
hordes of Cairenes during the
summer, while its jaded historical
and literary mystique remains
appealing to foreigners. And when El-Iskandariya
(the city's Arabic name) palls, you
can easily enough take a bus to
Mersa Matrouh and continue on to
Siwa Oasis.
The City
I loved the shabbiness of the
streets and cafés, the melancholy
which hung over the city late of an
evening, the slow decay (not
destruction, mind you) of what the
Europeans had left behind when they
fled. - Charlie Pye-Smith, The
Other...
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