Spectacular arrival in Alexandria! Well, let me preface that with what I thought first on creeping through the outskirts: what a dump. The roadside was festooned with diesel axles, oil spills, overturned barrels, torn metal sheeting, upturned vehicles in mud, discarded plastic bags attached to everything…

But there was such cool weather! The light was amber, filled with dust from the desert and moisture from the sea, on our hotel’s very doorstep – a Khamsin. The wind was rambunctious and tossing the date palms back and forth, while invisible rain lashed the streets, but somehow left us and the cars on them dry. How peculiar. But how beautiful too! We speed-walked along the Corniche, revelling in the strange weather, spoke quickly with random strangers who all welcomed us to Egypt (a lovely refrain we have heard from many Egyptians throughout our trip), and raced each other along the sea wall, the yellow, peach glow fuelling imagination.

We are staying at the Windsor Palace Hotel, dating from 1902 with the ceiling in our room at least 12 feet above our heads. Its posher than we by miles and we may have landed here by mistake, but no, those did appear to be our names on the reservations… The WiFi is super quick, the “lift” is from early last century and they served us lime juleps in the lobby as our bags were lugged up to our rooms. Mustn’t get used to this, mustn’t get used to this…