ALEXANDRIA turns its back on the rest of Egypt and faces the Mediterranean, as if contemplating its glorious past; a hybrid city characterized by Durrell as the "Capital of Memory". One of the great cities of antiquity, Alex slumbered for 1300 years until it was revived by Mohammed Ali and transformed by Europeans, who gave the city its present shape and made it synonymous with cosmopolitanism and decadence. This era came to an end in the 1950s with the mass flight of non-Egyptians and a dose of revolutionary puritanism, but Alexandria's beaches, restaurants and breezy climate still attract hordes of Cairenes during the summer, while its jaded historical and literary mystique remains appealing to foreigners. And when El-Iskandariya (the city's Arabic name) palls, you can easily enough take a bus to Mersa Matrouh and continue on to Siwa Oasis.