JOURNEY TO NOSTOS

Week 15 — Alexandria to Cyrenaica

Leaving the Delta, entering Greek Africa

Route
Alexandria → El Alamein → Marsa Matruh → Sallum → Benghazi → Cyrene (Shahhat) → Apollonia (Susa) → Derna

Endpoint: Cyrene / Cyrenaica
(This arrival establishes the North African arc westward.)

7 days • 3 bases • hinge week • Greek colonial Africa

At a glance

Bases
Alexandria (2) • Marsa Matruh (2) • Cyrene / Apollonia zone (3)

Hellenic anchors

Alexandria • Cyrene • Apollonia

How to use this week

Begin in Alexandria or arrive from the Levant.
This week marks a geographic and cultural pivot: from river-fed empire to plateau-based Greek colony.

Prologue — Leaving the Delta

Alexandria gathers knowledge; Cyrene plants it.

The Delta dissolves slowly behind you—water, canals, grain routes—until the coast hardens and the land begins to lift. The Mediterranean remains constant, but the logic beneath it changes. This is no longer a world organised by rivers and floodplains, but by plateaus, rainfall, and distance.

Cyrenaica was never an extension of Egypt. It was a Greek solution to African geography.

Route logic

Long coastal drives • limited daily ambition • terrain shifts prioritised over sites

Day by day

Day 1 — Alexandria

Overnight: Alexandria

Focus
Completion before departure.

Hellenic layer
Alexandria as synthesis: Greek method applied to Egyptian scale.

Do one thing properly
Sea-edge walk at first light or dusk.
No monuments.

Day 2 — Alexandria → El Alamein → Marsa Matruh

Overnight: Marsa Matruh

Focus
Leaving the Delta corridor.

Hellenic layer
Movement matters more than memory here; routes persist even when cities vanish.

Do one thing properly
Drive steadily.
Arrive early enough to feel the coast slow.

Day 3 — Marsa Matruh

Overnight: Marsa Matruh

Focus
Pause before the hinge.

Hellenic layer
Sheltered coves mattered to Greek navigation long before urban centres appeared.

Do one thing properly
One cove walk.
Long sit.
No agenda.

Day 4 — Marsa Matruh → Sallum (hinge) → Benghazi

Overnight: Benghazi

Focus
Crossing into Cyrenaica.

Hellenic layer
Sallum marks the shift from Egyptian to Greek ecological logic.

Do one thing properly
Observe the land rising.
Notice the vegetation change.

Day 5 — Benghazi → Cyrene (Shahhat)

Overnight: Cyrene area

Focus
Arrival at the Greek plateau city.

Hellenic layer
Cyrene is deliberate colonisation: city, hinterland, philosophy, export economy.

Do one thing properly
Single sanctuary circuit.
Stop early.

Day 6 — Cyrene → Apollonia (Susa)

Overnight: Apollonia / Cyrene area

Focus
Port-city pairing.

Hellenic layer
Apollonia exists because Cyrene needed the sea.

Do one thing properly
Harbour walk only.
Skip inland ruins.

Day 7 — Cyrene / Apollonia → Derna

Overnight: Derna (or final Cyrene night)

Focus
Closing the African hinge.

Hellenic layer
This coast confirms Greek Africa as a network, not an outpost.

Do one thing properly
Final sea-edge walk.
Early night.

Navigation

← Previous Week — Sidon to Alexandria
Next Week → The North African Arc Westward
Back to Egypt & Cyrenaica — Weeks 14–15

Optional: the long-form read

In the manuscript, this week becomes a meditation on Greek colonisation as ecological intelligence—how Cyrene thrived by reading land, not imposing empire. (Paid)