After a night in Alexandria we headed west along the Mediterranean coast toward the city of El Alamein. I wanted to see the place because of it's World War II significance. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was surprised at what I found. In my mind I thought I'd see a small, quiet, undisturbed village. Instead I found literally mile after mile of beach front condos, town-homes and resorts. Unfortunately, most of it appeared speculative in nature and was empty. Very weird.
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| Clandestine photo of our police escort |
As we drove toward El Alamein and deeper into Egypt, I became concerned about being so deep without any protection. It was like we could be victimized and nobody would know.
As it turns out, when we left Alexandria we had picked up a new passenger. At first I thought it was a friend of the driver or guide and we would drop him off somewhere along our route. But we never did.
Later I learned that he was a policeman hired to join our tour. It truly eased my mind.
When we arrived in the town we drove to the El Alamein cemetery and then visited a nearby museum.
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| Entry into the cemetery |
The setting for the cemetery was beautiful, simple and quiet. Land for the cemetery was donated by Egypt and the site is maintained by the British government. There was a German site, but we didn't visit it.
El Alamein Museum
The museum was created by Egypt and maintained by them. It contains displays for most of the countries involved in the conflict, which included primarily Britain and Germany, along with other countries like Italy and Australia.
Here are few photos from the museum
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| Unfortunately, the creators of the museum didn't check their English very closely |
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| I thought the German desert campaign insignia was interesting (palm tree) |
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| I liked this picture because it was a milk brand I saw growing up in Arizona |
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| Summer getting down with the Arab look. It made the museum keepers laugh. |
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| These were real bullet holes in the side of this half-track vehicle |
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| Group photo in front of a U.S. Sherman tank |
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