Pompey's Column, the Sphinx and the yellow and black trams

Among the most stratified archaeological sites is the one improperly named Pompey's Pillar by the Crusaders, by virtue of the 28-metre high Aswan red granite column soaring skywards, where the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was buried, although it was supposedly erected in honour of the emperor Diocletian. On this hill called the Serapeum and surrounded by largely leaning skyscrapers, one also comes across two copies of the Sphinx of Giza, composed of pink granite, as well as the ruins of what was the site of the Temple of Serapis and the buildings that constituted the first library erected by the Greek Egyptian dynasty of the Ptolemies. This was the acropolis of Alexandria: from up here you can admire the old trams rattling through the old town, challenged by the buggy, while the ice-cream vendors make children's mouths water as they swarm outside the school buildings.