Arriving in Alexandria

On Thursday night, after hurriedly catching the 3.20pm bus back home from work, we headed to Ramses Station in central Cairo to take the train to Alexandria for the weekend. The station is big, noisy, and - like everything else in Cairo - absolutely filthy. There were no arrival or departure boards that worked, and so it was a case of asking around to ensure we were at the right platform and boarding the right train.

We did manage to get on the right train, though, in our bargain 1st-class seats which cost us just 46LE each way. They offered an enormous amount of width and leg-room, and made the 2.5 hour journey incredibly comfortable. 1st class, however, didn't benefit from the same quality of toilets...which were frankly terrible. If ever travelling this route yourself, try to go before you board the train!

When we arrived in Alexandria we were hit by the expected wall of taxi drivers offering us "good price, cheap" but determinedly walked past them and picked up a car from the road. To be honest, we would probably have paid the same for a cab from right outside the station but I seem to have developed an allergy to taking taxis that are stopped, preferring instead to flag one an empty one down as it's moving.

The taxi drier had no idea where our hotel - Hotel Crillon - was, but did know where the fancy Hotel Cecil was, which was only a couple of roads away, so we got him to drop us there and walk the rest of the way. Checking in gave me an idea of the kind of place we had booked into, with mottled wallpaper barely clinging to to the walls and thick layers of dust gathered on the stuffed animals that adorned reception. Approaching our room, though, was another matter. The video below honestly doesn't reflect the truly "budget" nature of our room - suffice to say we stayed for one night and then asked to move rooms with the threat of checking out if they didn't oblige.

Our honest review? A basic, but lovely, hotel as long as you get a good room. That sounds a bit contradictory, but our first room - an en-suite on the 6th floor - was in a terrible state, while our second (room 407 on the 4th floor) was stunning. On checking the guidebook properly we found that it advised readers to "stay away from the rooms on the 6th floor" - presumably as the write had experienced the same kind of room as we had. Our second room shared toilet and shower facilities with 3 other rooms, but were kept in good condition. In fact, I could still smell the paint from an obviously recent renovation, which according to one book is part of a series of rolling renovations to all the rooms in the hotel. We peeked into other 4th floor rooms and found that some of those were less pleasant than ours, but they were definitely still habitable and still in a completely different league to the 6th floor.

Overall, though, you get what you pay for. Two rooms for four people for three nights cost 960LE including a light Egyptian breakfast of cheese salad and bread.