Thread by @PaliparanDotCom

Egypt, day 10. Back at Ramses station for the relatively short train ride to Alexandria. Why have breakfast in the hotel when you can have one with a view like this?!

The 8am express train to Alexandria is already at the platform 40 minutes before departure.

And the comfy first class carriage. Train is clearly in a better state than my previous one! Seats are comfy and in between the double windows you'll find adjustable blinds. The ticket in 1st class (AC1) is perfectly affordable at 130 Egyptian Pounds (7 Euro).

If you book your ticket online you will be automatically assigned a seat. Top tip for solo travellers: this happens before payment. If you're not happy w your seat number, start over the booking process and you'll get another seat as the unpaid seat is blacked out for ~15 mins.

Seat 1 and 3 are window seats, 2 is an aisle seat. Good to know if you want a window seat as in this case seats 2, 5, 8 etc are the ones to avoid in first class. In 2nd class seat numbers 1 and 4 will be window seats.

Departing Cairo Ramsee station..

*Ramses station that is ofc, and not Ramsee - small typo! 20 minutes in and we still haven't cleared the Cairo suburbs yet. Massive city of ~10 million people (more than 20 in the Cairo metro area). Sights, smells and chaos reminds me at bit of light version of India/Pakistan.

The express train passes through Banha, one of the larger cities in the Nile delta, without halting. Here we also cross the Damietta Branch of the Nile..!

Speeds for most are very good outside of towns. Much better on the Alexandria line than the railway south to Luxor! The delta is fertile ground, with some completely different trees/vegetation here in Lower Egypt compared to Upper Egypt.

Many Cairo to Alexandria trains stop at Tanta, an import city and junction in the Nile Delta.

This 8am express train is however one of the non-stop Cairo to Alexandra services and we just roll slowly through Tanta's station.

Picking up speed after Tanta. The biggest part of the Cairo-Alexandria railway runs along canals like these.

And crossing the Rosetta Branch of the Nile at Kafr El-Zayat. Rosetta (Rashid in Arabic) is a port city on the Med and is where the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 which helped archaeologists finally decipher the hieroglyphs as the same text was also written in Ancient Greek!

As we approach Alexandria the scenery gets a tad less interesting. Mostly large agricultural fields and for most the train runs alongside the main motorway.

Approaching Alexandria. The train halts at Alexandria's Sidi Gaber station first before continuing the last few miles to Alexandria Misr station serving downtown.

Arriving at Alexandria Misr station. End of the line!

Misr station, 2 hours and 45 minutes after departure from Cairo! Pretty station too like Ramses in Cairo. Howevet lots of renovation work going on here.

Some more pics of Misr station. It has a nice-looking cafe too if you have time to kill before departure.

The lot and streets in front of Misr station: a lovely chaos of buses and minibuses waiting for departure and hundreds of market vendors.

From the station it's a 20 mins walk to my hotel. Alexandria's streets breathe a turn of the century, old school vibe. Despite the chaos it feels much more relaxed than Cairo. Nobody even approaches you for smth! Port cities are always more worldly, open. Thanks for riding along!