Tour Guide, Cairo, Egypt
| 3 mins read
New resorts, resorts, hotels, and even residences, large or small as you like, are popping up from nowhere on the seafront. The waters here have the colour of the Maldives, and the fine sandy beach is perfect for the summer months. Palm trees, pathways, gardens, promenades: everything is new, and everything is perfect.
El Alamein has a less torrid climate than the Red Sea resorts, which have the desert behind them and which, in the summer, reach a temperature of 50°C. The Mediterranean climate is more pleasant; there is more breeze because it is more open and, above all, it is much further north than Hurghada, Sharm, and the other well-known Egyptian resorts. It’s a bit like going to Sicily. So you can go there already in the early summer and until late autumn. For all these reasons, it is also an ideal destination for families with children.
Before turning into a tourist destination, El Alamein was only remembered for one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War.
For those interested and want to take a break from sunbathing, you can visit the Military Museum with war relics: uniforms, weapons, letters from the front, and, in the courtyard, tanks, cannons, fighter planes and means of transport. And also a monument to the fallen in battle: 25 thousand dead, wounded and missing only of the Italian-German forces.
A few hundred meters from the museum stands the Commonwealth Cemetery of El Alamein with the gravestones of the fallen troops from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India, and other allies.
The El Alamein navy area was once called Leukaspis or Antiphrae, a port city of great importance for Egyptian and Libyan trade two thousand years ago. It was destroyed in 365 A.D. by a terrible earthquake off Crete. For centuries nothing was known about this city until in 1986, during the construction of some roads, ancient tombs and remains were not discovered, which are now collected in a large archaeological site.
If in El Alamein there is still not much to see and do for tourists, move a little bit to visit some places that are worth the excursion of a day or two at most. Like the one to the Oasis of Siwa, located in the Libyan desert, a few kilometres from the border with Libya. Its peculiarity is that it is located in a deep depression 18 meters below sea level. It is a real oasis rich in water and is famous for the production of high-quality dates.
For those who want some exercise or healthy shopping, not far away – about 200 km – is Alexandria, while Cairo is a little further away (about 300 km).