Egypt Guide
Alexandria and the Mediterranean coast
El-Alamein
The utterly misnamed "city" of EL-ALAMEIN squats on a dusty plain 106km west of Alexandria, situated along a spur road that turns inland from the coastal highway. Anyone driving past could blink and see nothing except construction debris until they pass the Italian War Cemetery 9km down the highway. Still, El-Alamein ("Two Worlds") is an apt name for a place that witnessed the turning point of the North African campaign, determining the fate of Egypt and Britain's empire. When the Afrika Korps came within 111km of Alexandria on July 1, 1942, the city and the capital experienced "The Flap": documents were burned, civilians mobbed railway stations, and Egyptian nationalists prepared to welcome their Nazi "liberators". Control of Egypt, Middle Eastern oil and the Canal route to India seemed about to be wrested from the Allied powers by Germany and Italy. Instead, at El-Alamein, the Allied Eighth Army held, and then drove the Axis forces back, to ultimate defeat in Tunisia. Some eleven thousand soldiers were killed and seventy thousand wounded at El-Alamein alone; total casualties for the North African campaign (September 1940– March 1943) exceeded one hundred thousand. Travellers who wish to pay their respects to the dead or have an interest in military history should find the cemeteries and the war museum worth the effort of getting there. Commemorative services are held at El-Alamein each October; contact the British, Australian, Italian or German embassies in Cairo for details.
While you can be sure of finding all the cemeteries open (daily: summer 8am–5pm; winter & Ramadan 9am–4pm), it's worth phoning ahead to check about the museum ( 
046/410-0021), as it closes now and again for some reason or another. All the Allied memorials lie beside a spur road off the highway, which begins just after the turn-off for the Qattara Depression. First comes the Greek Memorial, followed 400m later by the South African Memorial, and then the Allied War Cemetery secluded on the reverse slope of a hill. Planted with trees and flowers, it is a tranquil site for the graves of 7367 Allied soldiers (815 of them nameless, only "known unto God"), with memorial cloisters listing the names of 11,945 others whose bodies were never found. Though over half were Britons, the dead include Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, Malays, Melanesians, Africans, Canadians, French, Greeks and Poles. If you want to find a particular headstone, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission ( 
www.cwgc.org ) in London can tell you exactly where to look. Walking down to the cemetery, you'll pass the Australian Memorial, honouring the 9th Australian Division that stormed Point 29 and Thompson's Post during the penultimate phase of the Third Battle.