Photo : Aymanrefaat09 — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Alexandria · Anfoushi
Qaitbay Citadel
A Mamluk fortress of the 1470s at the harbour point, over the ruins of the Pharos.
Sultan Qaitbay had the fort built in the late 1470s on the point that closes the eastern harbour, on the very spot where the Pharos of Alexandria had stood until it came down, centuries before the fort was begun. Some of its stone comes from that ruin: in the walls you can pick out drums of granite columns laid crosswise through the rubble core. From the causeway you see it whole first, its crenellations and its gate; inside there is a square keep, a mosque on the upper floor, vaulted corridors and gun embrasures open to the sea. The rooms are largely empty: what you visit is the masonry and the view.
The extra bit
Go up onto the roof of the keep and look east: the whole curve of the eastern harbour and the corniche unroll at once. Come in the morning, ahead of the school parties, and keep the Anfoushi fish market for afterwards, it is in the same quarter.
Know before you go
This is a state site: ticket at the window, bags opened at the entrance, and a photography surcharge that comes and goes from year to year — put the question at the window. The fort stands on the water without a tree on it: the wind blows almost always, and in summer the stone throws the heat back. Inside, the stairs are steep, the steps uneven and the passages narrow; the ground floor can be walked, the upper floors cannot, and the whole thing stays out of reach in a wheelchair. The causeway out to it is long and unshaded, and in a strong wind the spray comes over the parapet.
