Express to Alexandria

Room 301 at the Metropole

Journey to Alexandria
Feeling smug about avoiding ground transport and taxis, we boarded the Metro for Mubarek and walked into Ramesses Station. King Hotel to platform in 35 mins, carrying light packs and handbags. Train itself took about 2hr 20mins to cover the 200+km, would have been hard to have been one of Napoleon’s troops doing this through the desert on foot. From Iskandreya station we walked down Danial to the beautiful Metropole Hotel, a total joy with fabulous breakfasts, elegant furniture, the antique and slightly vertigo inducing central lift, and our gold gilded room was fit for minor royalty. Everything in the marble bathroom worked, a first for Egypt.

Most time was spent aimlessly wandering, though we did get to the musty catacombs of Kom el shoqafa, Quaitby Fort and the splendid Bibliotheca. We loved Iskandreya, but the “faded glory” cafes in guide books are hopeless and overpriced, best to strike out and find your own.
The 2nd class express was comfortable good value at 29LE, but on our return journey the minor disaster was finding the ticket office in Cairo made a mistake with the date which we didn’t notice at the time, meaning we had to buy duplicates, this slightly took the edge off budget train travel. But got back to Cairo without hassles, we’d like to stay in Alexandria for days longer, weeks, months…