After about an hour on the bus we passed through Rashid otherwise known as Rosetta on the way to the fort where the Rosetta Stone was found. If you don’t remember, the stone contains the same document in Greek and 2 different scripts in Egyptian language of the day. The stone itself was found by the  French but removed to England when they defeated the French and the local population. Anyway on our way to the fort we stopped to visit a brick making factory..

We then toured the fort near the mouth of the Nile’s Western branch. We were disappointed that the stair to the upper deck with a view of the mouth of the Nile was closed and locked. Caroline had the bus drive us out to the mouth itself where we could see the river flow into the Mediterranean. I commented “It is better to be at the end than to see it.”

We returned to Rashid to see a governor’s house converted into a museum with an interesting miscellany of fighting implements, household article and copies of original documents, particularly the marriage document of the governor who converted to Islam to marry his first wife and later converted back to Christianity (?) after his divorce. Half the document appears to be scratched out as if the wording needed to be changed.

We proceeded from there to walk in the market which was just outside the door. We were treated to a variety of snacks from several vendors to stave off starvation as we were driving back to King Farouk’s Palace grounds in Alexandria  for lunch. It was a late lunch, it was a large lunch, it  had an incredible assortment of deserts included. It is usual to get in at least one “food porn” shot, I was a bit late taking this one. It is 9:30 PM as I write this and I just ate a snack bar for “dinner.”

I must make a note about security. We have almost always have an armed security guard with us, provided by the Ministry of Tourism. Today we had a motorcycle police officer leading us through Rashid and and a truck with several armed men behind us . WE have come to rely on the security officer to ease our crossing of busy roads and to know there was always someone behind the last of us to see that we didn’t get lost or hurt. It is reassuring, but a bit sad to know that this is more necessary than we might have thought before reading of the resumption of protests against the current very strict government in today’s NYTimes

After exploring the Palace from the road we returned to the hotel. Caroline had a mission to buy an outfit for a friend and offered to lead us through the local market in search of the necessary objects. Most of us tagged along. We lost 3 participants in the market crush. We completed the purchases and returned to the hotel to find our “lost” travelers. 

It was a great day!