A return to Alexandria, Egypt

Since many travellers usually go about with a lot of money, they are usually prime targets for pickpockets.

This is most likely to happen in foreign countries where you may not be able to use your debit or credit card.

Having said this, it is still good to know that no African city is in the latest list of the 10 top most pickpocketed cities in the world.

Even though a very painful episode, my encounter 43 years ago with the Alexandrian youthful swindlers was a blessing in disguise.

 Having written about the incident in the form of a travel story, I decided to publish it and therefore sent the story to Ms Amman Ogan, the then Editor of the Nigerian Guardian On Sunday.

I was completely swept off my feet when my story later appeared in a 1983 edition of The Guardian under the title; ASSAULT IN ALEXANDRIA.

That was my first published travel story and the beginning of a long career in travel story writing.

Since that balmy day in Alexandria, I had gone on to write more than 50 travel stories, many of which have now been published all over the world and in my two current collections of travel stories. 

The return

Therefore, apart from being a holiday event, my return to Alexandria was also a celebration to mark a Literary Odyssey that commenced 43 years ago and has taken me to more than 40 countries with a large following of literary and academic enthusiasts.

Founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Alexandria is a bustling city with a population of five million people.

The city still retains faint echoes of its former glories.  
Having flourished as one of the greatest Graeco-Roman cities of its time, Alexandria remains one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean.  

During the Hellenistic period, it was home to a lighthouse ranking among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as well as a storied library.

Today, the library is reincarnated in the disc-shaped, ultra-modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The city also has Greco-Roman landmarks, old-world cafes and sandy beaches.

Its 15th-century seafront Qaitbay Citadel is now a museum.

Alexandria

The history of Alexandria dates back to the city's founding, by Alexander the Great, in 331 BC.

Yet, before that, there were some big port cities just east of Alexandria, at the western edge of what is now Abu Qir Bay.

The Canopic (westernmost) branch of the Nile Delta still existed at that time and was widely used for shipping.

After its foundation, Alexandria became the seat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and quickly grew to be one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world.

Only Rome which gained control of Egypt in 30 BC, eclipsed Alexandria in size and wealth.

The city fell to the Arabs in AD 641, and a new capital of Egypt, Fustat, was founded on the Nile.

After Alexandria's status as the country's capital ended, it fell into a long decline which by the late Ottoman period, had seen it reduced to little more than a small fishing village.

The French army under Napoleon captured the city in 1798 and the British soon captured it from the French, retaining Alexandria within their sphere of influence for 150 years.

The city grew in the early 19th century under the industrialisation programme of Mohammad Ali, the viceroy of Egypt.

The current city is the Republic of Egypt's leading port, a commercial, tourism and transportation centre and the heart of a major industrial area where refined petroleum, asphalt, cotton textiles, processed food, paper, plastics and styrofoam are produced.

On the day of my visit, the library, the beautiful disc-shaped, ultra-modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I, therefore, missed the opportunity of viewing manuscripts and rare books from Egypt, the Arab world and the Mediterranean countries that are stored in the library.

Although the famous Light House, one of the seven wonders of the world, had been destroyed by an earthquake, I was able to visit The Citadel of Qaitbay a 15th-century defensive fortress located on the Mediterranean Sea coast.